07/26/08 Eye Mind-Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators by Paul Drummond

The ups and downs of the 13th Floor Elevators don't vary much from the arc followed by a lot of creative garage, rock and punk bands that originate in the underground and achieve enough success locally to warrant taking their music nationwide.

So when do the stereotypical foibles of mismanagement, inept record labels, poor communication within the band, and vulnerability to the irresponsible influence of crazy fans, girlfriends and family members become book-worthy?



In the case of the Elevators; two factors: their unorthodox ambition (to redefine the divine and to discover new dimensions of reality) and the personal dynamic between Tommy Hall, a manipulative educated, philosophist/lyricist with minimal music skills, and Roky Erickson, an easily distracted child-like high school dropout who was the band's musically gifted frontman.

Paul Drummond digs deep into the history of the band via magazine articles and interviews with key players that were done specifically for this book.

Drugs played a significant role in the Elevators (they often recorded and performed while "playing the acid") as did Tommy Hall's esoterical "system" based on the music of Bob Dylan and The Beatles, religious texts, and formal studies of Philosophy (primarily the writings of Gurdijeff/Ouspensky and "Science and Sanity" by Alfred Korzybski).

At their best, (the Easter Everywhere LP) the Elevators' attempts at reaching higher planes of consciousness were counter-balanced by the constraints of basic folk/rock and roll structure and lifestyle (simplicity and generally being fuck-ups).

But even during the timeframe when the bands creativity was stuck in a toxic morass brought on by heroin, dmt, and romilar abuse, creative differences, troubles with the law and Roky's institutionalization, Drummond provides the necessary amount of detail and context to keep the reader turning the pages.

"Eye Mind" is one of those rare music history books that appears to be about a specific group of musicians but ends up being more than just a telling of one band's history.

07/15/08 Eddie Bunker’s Stark

I was surprised to see a "new" Eddie Bunker novel turn up in 2008. (He passed away in 2005). "Stark" is a previously unpublished manuscript that's estimated to have been written in the late 60s or early 70s; certainly before Bunker's first novel, "No Beast so Fierce" was published in 1973.

"Stark", aka "Ernie Stark" is a con-man with a recent parole violation. "Stark", the novel, is the story of his attempt to weasel out of a return to forced confinement by narcing on his main drug connection.

Bunker, whether writing fiction or biography, is one of the best at showing that a person who's perceived as a no-good deviant can also be a person who acts with integrity.



Ernie Stark, in contrast, is a snitch with an eye for the easy-way out. The back-door exit. Preferably; a situation where someone else can be set up to take the fall.

He deftly juggles complications brought on by a burgeoning drug habit, double-crossing activities (he appears on the wanted list of both good and bad guys) and crazed sexual partners.

It's less interesting though to read about the activities of guys who are wary of opening doors, like Ernie Stark, than the complicated masterminds of Bunkers later novels, No Beast So Fierce, Little Boy Blue and Dog Eat Dog.

So check out any of those, or Bunker's memoir 'Education of a Felon" first. And if you dig, crack open "Stark" the next time you feel like passing a couple of hours with a pulpy pb in your hands.

07/11/08 - Sic Alps live @ Treehouse

San Francisco based duo Sic Alps didn't blow me away during their late-afternoon pre-Turf Club show set at Treehouse records. But they put do put those vibrating woods and wires to good use. So check out their new LP, "U.S. EZ" on Siltbreeze records or maybe even see 'em for yourself as they tour thru the summer.











Then, on the way out the door i nabbed a couple of cool used lps-Silver Trails by Quicksilver and Archie Shepp's - Coral Rock. It was a good day.

07/10/2008 - Cassavetes Improv

As of now this can't be verified as anything more than a tantalizing internet rumor buuuuuttttt... I've read in a few online film forums that later this year Sony is starting a new line of DVD releases, 'Martini Movies', and one of the films on the docket is Cassavetes 'Husbands'??!! Woah.

Speaking of Cassavetes-- another pair of parallel excerpts from Stop Smiling 34 (a solid issue - cover to cover).



Stop Smiling: What was Charles Mingus' role in the soundtrack for Shadows?

Al Ruban: Mingus worked on a score but he was more organized than John wanted. And I don't think that was apparent to John in the beginning. He did all this music, and John loved it, but he really wanted control. John needed to improvise some things because he couldn't communicate what he wanted to get across.

SS: So who did the saxophone work that's in the film?

AR: Shafi Hadi, who had recently been released from prison. John got him to do some saxophone solos. I remember how they recorded them. John would act out everything, and in the sound booth. Shafi tried to interpret on his saxophone what John was emotionally telling him what to do. He behaved with Shafi in a very emotional way, didn't explain anything, just acted it out. John would be on the floor, jumping around. And it worked very well, because you hear a lot of it in the film. Unfortunately, Shafi died at an early age, but he was a very, very good saxophonist.

excerpted from Nicolas Rapold's interview with Al Ruban and Seymour Cassel on the subject of John Cassavetes.
as published in Issue 34 (April 2008) of Stop Smiling magazine.

----------------------------------------------------


SS: With the standardization of test audiences, Hollywood directors seemingly can't be trusted anymore. In Cassavetes' day, he could make a completely improvised film.

Ken Vandermark: He would still make the kinds of films he made then if he was making them now, just because of the kind of person he was. But he was struggling his whole career to get those films made. He was unbelievably important as a director, and even he couldn't get the backing to get the films made. Cassavetes is one of the most important American directors.

excerpted from Jim Dempsey's conversation with Ken Vandermark.
as published in Issue 34 (April 2008) of Stop Smiling magazine.

07/08/08 - Bruce Conner (11/18/33–7/7/08)

http://artforum.com/news/news20693

Bruce Conner (1933–2008)
07.07.08

Bruce Conner, a San Francisco–based artist known for his assemblages, films, drawings, and interdisciplinary works, passed away Monday afternoon. Conner moved to San Francisco in 1957 and quickly found his place within the city's vibrant Beat community. His gauzy assemblages of scraps salvaged from abandoned buildings, nylon stockings, doll parts, and other found materials gained him art-world attention, as did A Movie (1958), an avant-garde film that juxtaposed footage from B movies, newsreels, soft-core pornography, and other fragments, all set to a musical score. (In 1991, A Movie was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.) Conner was active in the Bay Area's 1960s counterculture scene, designing light shows for Family Dog performances at the Avalon Ballroom, and in the '70s focused on drawing and photography. Art-world recognition resumed in the '80s and continued to the present: Conner was included in the 1997 Whitney Biennial, was the subject of a touring survey in 1999–2000, and is featured in the current Carnegie International. At Conner's request, there will be no funeral.


a few of my favorite Conner creations
(some pix taken of plates as they appear in the Walker Art Center exhibition catalog 2000BC The Bruce Conner Story part II).

RIP Bruce.



the bride 1960


looking glass 1964


sound of two hand angel 1974


Bruce Conner photo of De Detroit fronting her band U.X.A.


portrait 1992


a still from Breakaway - a Bruce Conner video starring Toni Basil 1966
Breakaway video on YouTube

07/04/08-wishes vs beliefs/stop smiling issue 34

Stop Smiling: What do you feel about the possibilities for music as a healing power in the universe?

Ron Carter: I'm not sure music can do that. I'm not sure that Beethoven's Fifth or Miles Davis' Kind of Blue played in Congress is gonna make them stop the fuckin' war, man. Or make the Shiites and the Sunnis not shoot each other. We hear musicians and people who look for ways to solve problems say that music is the answer. But music has so many different possible interpretations that I don't see how its possible for a tune or note to discourage a guy from robbing this grocery. I hope my examples don't seem simpleminded, but I don't think that music has the kind of life-changing force to make the world what I would call a better place to be. I can't imagine a person- a hedge fund manager- would go to the Village Vanguard and hear different bands for a week and be so moved by this music that they'd give the Village Vanguard their million dollars so they could operate for a year without taking any money off the door. I wish I could play a chorus and make the robbers stop robbing. I wish I could play a chorus and make all the gangs come to my gig at a nightclub and say, "Man, we gotta stop doing this." It's going to take something else to make that happen. And I don't think music is the means to make that take place. There was a jazz fundraiser at the White House this year (2007) and President Bush said he enjoyed the music, but the war's still going on, man. Kids are still getting killed. The music didn't stop his thought process at all.

excerpted from Peter Relics' talk with Ron Carter
as published in Issue 34 (April 2008) of Stop Smiling magazine



Coltrane read different kinds of theoretical books, about music, religion, the occult, science, mathematics. In workbooks, he made correlations between times of day, sunrises and sunsets, and musical notes (he didn't press any of this research on his musicians, though he shared some of these interests with Sonny Rollins and Yusef Lateef.) Among the books he owned was the extended edition of "Music: Its Secret Influence Through the Ages" by the English composer Cyril Scott, published in 1958. Scott was influenced by Theosophy, and Coltrane first came into contact with Sun Ra when while he passed through Chicago on tour with the Miles Davis Quintet; they would continue to meet after Sun Ra moved, with his Arkestra, to New York in the early sixties. Whatever else, Coltrane absorbed from Sun Ra, it seems certain that they shared some philosophical interests).

Scott believed that music, properly used, brings humans in touch with the Devas, the angels or gods form previous ages. He also argued that music easily and effectively changes human psychology; he argued that human behavior is affected not only by the emotional content of music but by its form, and that such forces are pervasive: one need not be within earshot of music to benefit from its effects. Scott wrote about music (even 20th century music) in religious and semi-sceintific terms, without bringing up the subject of art much. He did talk about jazz, though, with priggish racialized scorn (he felt that it "closely resembled the music of primitive savages").

excerpted from "Coltrane: The Story of a Sound" by Ben Ratliff
as published in Issue 34 (april 2008) of Stop Smiling magazine.

07/02/08 - the violinist/rita ackermann

collages by rita ackerman
photographs by mario sorrenti


from the spring/summer issue (9) of Purple Fashion Magazine

The Violinist

"First, photographer Mario Sorrenti worked with stylist Camilla Nickerson, developing a fashion story about the futuristic decomposition of bodies in motion. Then, Hungarian artist Rita Ackermann appropriated Mario's pictures and created 3-D collages and paintings which she set between plexiglass panels."

The following images are more striking in the original layout of the magazine (these here comprise about one half of the spread).

And it could go w/o saying that these shrinky digital snapshots are no subsitute for the glossy pages of the magazine.

The same could also be said for the Purple Anthology/15th Anniversary collection just published by Rizzoli. Though priced at little more the cost of two issues of the magazine it is def. worth checking out.