up the junction

The Virgins cover Squeeze in Paris. I have to repulsed by people to really desire them. (see below)

you can't regret something that you'll forget

Wheeeee, watch this video of my favorite Ryan Jahhhman getting his ear pierced by Johnny Marr.

Like a pro!

Younger Than Jesus

image from AIDS-3D's website

The New Museum's generational Younger Than Jesus very much impressed me, even though I had major doubts before seeing the show. I worried this was going to be another Unmonumental or 2008 Biennial, but I was wrong.

The New Museum's layout perfectly housed the exhibition. Not too sprawling, but spacious enough so it didn't feel overly contained, the artists' work spanned 4 floors. We started on floor #5 in the Museum as Hub portion called the Interactive Timeline. I recommend this approach. On the wall in neon printing paper rainbow, there is a timeline of transformative events from the past 33 years. Visitors can suggest events that didn't make the timeline in a transparent plexi-glas suggestion box. On the opposite side of the room zines and various other paper booklets are lined out on a table. DIY-style, you can pick them up and thumb through. Books stand guard on a shelf over two computers with links to different sites and articles. And best of all, in the far corner alcove of the room, a video plays, consisting of media coverage of the past 33 years, informational blips, and clips from music videos. Think "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the OJ Simpson car chase, 9-11 narrated by Diane Sawyer, and the original theatrical trailer for Kids. The juxtaposition (or is it a mere relationship?) of art, rock and roll, and senseless violence and terrorism puts the work on the 4 floors below into a cohesive, yet expansive context. Whether or not we want to admit it, our generation more than any other, thank to technology, has experienced life in an increasingly similar way.

As for the show, the single piece that stands out for me: the above sculpture by AIDS-3D. The black monolith calls 60's minimalist sculptures by John McCracken to mind, not to mention the creepily transcendant black monolith from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. AIDS-3D puts a Generation-Y-tastic twist on the black rock with the neon letters of everyone's favorite cyberspeak, OMG. This contemporizes the McCracken rip-off and critiques Kubrick's triptastic film at once in a clever but still eerie way.

Jakub Julian Ziolkowski's paintings impressed me the most. His influences seem to range from Hieronymous Bosch to Where's Waldo. I could have spent much more time examining his clever and beautiful work. The sarcastically precious and intricately crafted cartoonish rendering of war imagery and the characters that compose that iconography left me feeling haunted and foolish. Foolish because of the past 8 years in which our country sends our own to fight a war for what seems like intricately crafted and cartoonish reasons.

Anyway, my analysis aside, the show is up until June, and everyone should take a look. Art is turning the corner from the junk-trash-shit-on-a-stick variety, and the conceptualism present in this sampling is the perfect refreshment the art world needs. Kind of like an ice-cold Diet Pepsi.

Finally Paterson does something GREAT

Paterson Unveils Same-Sex Marriage Bill: (read full article @NYTimes here)

"Anyone that has ever experienced degradation or intolerance would understand the solemn duty and how important it actually is. Anyone that’s ever experienced antisemitism or racism, any New Yorker who is an immigrant, who has experienced discrimination, any woman who has faced harassment at work or suffered violence at home, any disabled person who has been mocked or marginalized, understands what we’re talking about here. We have all known the wrath of discrimination. We have all felt the pain and the insult of hatred. This is why we are all standing here today. We stand to tell the world that we want equality for everyone. We stand to tell the world that we want marriage equality in New York State."

In unrelated, but equally as awesome news, John Madden is retiring.

space ships, they don't understand

NY Magazine has a feature this week about famous people and their first experiences when they moved to NYC. Albert had this to say:Albert Hammond Jr., musician

Arrived: 1998

Getting a job at Kim’s Video was harder than joining a band. It was ridiculous: You had to know someone. But I had just moved from L.A., trying to get away from my friends who were slow and didn’t want to do anything but get fucked up. I finally met this guy name Aurelio from the band Calla, and one day he called and said, “Hey, there’s a position for you, do you want it?” I was like, “I’ve dropped off tons of résumés, now I can just get the job?”

It was only a month after living here that I met Julian Casablancas. His father had a modeling agency called Elite, and I walked in one day after recognizing his name on the door. We quickly moved into an apartment on 18th Street. We each had a bathroom, which was the reason why we got it (he’s a mess, I’m neat). When I met Julian, I told him I played guitar. He said, “That’s funny, we’re looking for a guitar player.” So I tried out, but what I didn’t know is that he had already decided I would be in the band.

We were really ambitious. It’s all Julian and I spoke about every night. We set a goal of playing shows within a year. At first, we didn’t go out anywhere cool—just Rudy’s, which was near the studio and had free hot dogs and $5 pitchers. But slowly we’d go to bars like Don Hill’s and Bar 13 to promote, handing out flyers with stuff from weird seventies soft-porn movies like Emmanuelle. They started to recognize us—“Oh, there’s the guys from the Strokes hanging out”—and as a group the five of us were a pretty striking image. We were really cocky. Not in a bad way, we just believed in ourselves and so we were always balls to the wall.

funky strokes

So many things are right/wrong with this video, where to begin? First the teeth, always the teeth. How can you not love Donald straight away? Homeboy's looking a little more homeless than usual, but who cares? He's staring right into the camera the whole time like a dead stick figure dressed in the red flannel Brooklyn heart palpitations are made of. On drugs or drunk? Probably. But he could also be suffering from borderline somnambulism. It doesn't matter, everything he does works in the end.

Now the real reason for the post. I had a heart attack when I misheard "funky Strokes" for "fuck the Strokes" no less than 4 times in the video. Do I sense a little annoyance in Donald's slur? Probably, and I totally support it. WHY does every new young band, esp those that come out of NYC have to be compared to the Strokes? Don't get me wrong, I love that Jules & Co. are the touchstone for what matters in this town, but sometimes the comparisons can be over-top-top, or worse yet, relentless.

First Arctic Monkeys (recording 3rd album now in Brooklyn!!!) were plagued so much by the press pre-Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not release, that they lashed back with EP Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys? I foolishly boycotted due to the Alex-Turner-is-the-next-Julian-is-the-next-Kurt-Cobain bullshit that swamped the blogosphere. Turns out the lads became one of my favorite bands and went on to win the coveted Mercury Prize for their debut. Mr. Turner has since been nominated for his full-length efforts AM's Favourite Worst Nightmare and Last Shadow Puppets' The Age of the Understatement.

Countless other bands were forced to live up to Is This It? standards (including the Strokes upon releasing First Impressions of Earth, but that's another story). Vampire Weekend was immediately hailed THE NEXT STROKES when the 1st notes of "Kwassa Kwassa," etc, hit the net. WHY? Because they formed a band while studying @ Columbia? Because they wear polo shirts and Cape Cod khakis? Because they use strings at their live shows to fill in the barebones tracks, and the Strokes layer their shit like a Charlotte Ronson look book? Don't get me wrong, I am a minor fan of this band, but Strokes they are not, and this particular Venn Diagram experiment really drove me up the wall.

Then the Virgins, bless them. The first time I saw them at Mercury Lounge NYE 07 they could barely play their guitars. They were sweet, smokin' hot, and they had good songs, but honeyyyyyy they could NOT hold a candle to a Strokes live show. Out of Strokes-comparison context, the Virgins kick fucking ass, and I think their heralded "funk" comes more like an inheritance from Mick Jagger circa "Emotional Rescue" than any Wiz Kid recordings. Of course I could always be wrong. Point is, the Virgins have had to deal with facing up to the Strokes almost mythological status (since their undeclared hiatus) in this city, and unfairly, too. The Virgins now play like pros, cover amazing NYC (and not) songs from the rock and roll cool canon, and as Donald mentions above, their shows are really "fun."

The latest Strokes-addled performer is Lissy Trullie. Read this article written by Lizzy Goodman from NYMag. Can't you hear the breathless praise in a smoker's rasp? The end of the article is so romantic and cliche and abs. insane (I was at that show) that you just have to laugh. Lissy's music can stand on its own without having to put her into the NYC Cool School of Rock and Roll. I know it's fun to talk about Lou Reed and J Cas and The Ramones etc. in the same paragraph of a glossy mag, but I think Lissy's music is much more 60's girl-band influenced, with a dash of Live Thru This and a pinch of Nico's solo album. Certainly Eben de Amico's musicianship plays a role as well. (He used to play for Saves the Day.)

This is a pretty long rant. Bottom line, stop comparing every fucking single band to the Strokes. None of them will ever live up to it... and they'll probably just get annoyed that people can't listen to their tunes without calling it "funky Strokes" or "sober Strokes" or "disco Strokes" or "post-Apocalyptic Dharma Initiative coconut Strokes." You get the point.

looooove love will tear us apart

Here's a plug for my friend Harper's blog. Check it out, she's super cool and likes good music. Here's her "about me" section:

The launch of GPS: Great Phinding Spero. For those of you who know me, you understand that not a day passes without me hearing of a ‘centrally located sublet’ or a company looking for people to “get in at the ground level” of some hot new agency in NYC. People are constantly asking me about the ‘must eat’ places in the East Village, where to throw their birthday parties, where to grab a great Mojito before a show etc….
My philosophy lies in the power behind ‘word of mouth’. It’s about the spreading of information, sharing places, faces, music and more to keep YOU in touch with the best and the rest. So the purpose of this is to get the word out there. I’d like to help YOU phind that perfect Sublet, your new favorite bar, the best gnocchi in Manhattan…& everything else!
I’m all about suggestions and feedback so PLEASE let me know how I can best assist in phinding what you’re looking for. Feel free to e-mail at gpspero@gmail.com when you have any information that is post-able, or are looking for information about something new in NEW YORK CITY.
Check in with GPS regularly and tell your friends how I phind what they’re looking for. Enjoy!

i got a whole lotta don't to do

Last night Scott and I R-trained it to Park Slope to see Lissy Trullie. First time at Union Hall, 408th time at an LT concert. I kid, I kid.

US Royalty opened. They are pretty derivative of bands like Kings of Leon and sound a lot like Young Lords (some of whom happened to be in the audience) and Japanese Motors. But they put on a fun, upbeat show, and their bassist wildy/awkwardly resembles Julian circa Room on Fire, hair, style, and all. They play Webster Hall tonight.

Then Lissy. She had a denim, zip-up vest on over her trademark leather jacket and tight black dress. They played the usual set: Forget About It, She Said, Don't to Do (fave new song!), Money, Billy, Ready for the Floor, Self-taught Learner, and Boy Boy. Fun times, as usual. Her songs are like crack; I've had the EP for months and the pre-EP even longer, and I can't stop listening.

doin things that you don't understand

I love Ben's new ice skater hair do. Image from LOSTPEDIA.

The best line from any Lost recap ever: "but unless Desmond had some bulletproof cans of haggis in that bag, bruthuh should have been dead..." from Doc Jensen.

YouWillGetPapercuts

Enough horse shit. Dan and I started a blog for writers/creative types. It's called YouWillGetPapercuts (I keep typing papercutes by mistake!) I can't take credit for the title but I like it... it's a nice mix of I'm sick of my job because I get so many papercuts from filing all this shit and I love writing so much that sometimes i turn the pages of my notebook so fast that I give my fingers papercuts and of course, Nirvana, because "Paper Cuts" is a great song.

Anyway, you should click on the link, read up, and send us stuff at youwillgetpapercuts@gmail.com. We want to read anything/everything and look at photos and art.

DAMN THE MAN, SAVE THE EMPIRE!

another one bites the dust

http://gawker.com/5202204/four-down-vermont-oks-gay-marriage

Another victory! When will NY (and the rest of USA) follow? Soon, I hope.

kirby spafflespoof

crazy eyes forte

get in me.

I have a problem. I like jerks. Think Dennis Hopper in The Last Movie, Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces, Matt Dillon in The Outsiders, or Josh Hartnett in The Virgin Suicides. Better yet, think Daniel Desario in Freaks and Geeks.

Turns out James Franco is back in on the jerk action in the Wholphin No. 8 DVD of "rare and unseen short films." Watch a clip above. I have to go now, I have to die.

stand by your man

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/us/04iowa.html?hp
YEAHHHHH GO IOWA!

“Equal protection under the Iowa Constitution is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike. Since territorial times, Iowa has given meaning to this constitutional provision, striking blows to slavery and segregation, and recognizing women’s rights. The court found the issue of same-sex marriage comes to it with the same importance as the landmark cases of the past.”