Stephan Moore & Scott Smallwood present Final Goodship Tuesday. Out Now from Wow Cool.
About Us
Wow Cool is a studio and label based in Cupertino, California. Artists include: Marc Arsenault, Brown Cuts Neighbors, Steven Cerio, evidence, Simon Gane, God Hates Computers, nickname: Rebel, and Offset Needle Radius.
Newave! is a 892 page monster collection of 80's minicomix. Art by Marc Arsenault, Sam Henderson, Ion, Wayno and scores of others. Available Right Now!
I have certain fascinations, passions, interests and obsessions. Always having a camera in my pocket means I now take thousands of photos related to them. Sometimes the meaning can only be demonstrated in sequence or juxtaposition. Most of the time they just sit undisturbed on a flash card or hard drive. Lately my love of language and advertising has been getting pretty aggressively scratched at random by things around me. Sometimes you need to look closely, at other times they are screaming so loud in your face that you are likely to ignore them. Draw your own conclusions.
Alternative Meat - a section in the frozen foods aisle at Whole Foods
One of the very few films that somewhat understood punk and that awkward time of someone being pretty sure they want to be punk, but not doing so hot at it. That part may be a little to familiar for many. The rest of it, hopefully less so. Genuinely disturbing.
Record Store Day is this Saturday. 3,000 Indie record stores have closed in the US in the last decade. “I Need That Record! The Death (or Possible Survival) of the Independent Record Store” by guerrilla filmmaker Brendan Toller features interviews with Thurston Moore, Ian MacKaye, Noam Chomksy, Mike Watt, Lenny Kaye and others. The film will be offered be offered exclusively via indie record stores for 90 days starting on Independent Record Store Day, this Saturday April 17th.
“An elegy for a vanishing subculture …a lively, bittersweet film that examines – with caustic humor, brutal candor, and, ultimately, great affection – why roughly 3,000 indie record stores have closed across the nation over the past decade…” – Johnathan Perry, Boston Globe
or, I swear, I shall close every last one of these tabs.
Sorry it’s been slow blog lately. A casual look around reveals that most others are even lazier. Anyway. Been very busy getting a record out to press, a 2011 calendar started and getting a front yard garden put in. More on all that in the coming weeks and months.
In the meanwhile here’s the things I’ve found super interesting and want to share.
Many years ago, Alex Jordan Jr., in an inspired case of Frank Lloyd Wright envy, created the astounding mid-west tourist attraction, the House on the Rock. A few years later, acclaimed comic book writer Neil Gaiman created the astounding, and much recommended novel American Gods, which features a pivotal scene in the House on The Rock. On October 29th and 30th, you can join Neil Gaiman and other American Gods fans for literary panels, talks, presentations, a limited number of chances to ride the World’s Largest Carousel, and a costume party focused on all things American Gods. If you can’t make that, but love the book and own a camera, you can join my flickr group, American Gods House. The group description is highly entertaining.
I don’t know how I missed this for so long, but John Bergin has taken his classic self-published From Inside to the screen. Very much worth a look.
150 years ago – April 9, 1860: Phonoautogram made the oldest known human sound recording “Au Clair de la Lune.”
In case you missed Fluke on tour recently with Andrew Jackson Jihad, you can pick up the latest issue from me at Anno Domini’s Art of Zines show in San Jose this Friday. Published in Tucson, Arizona, 2010. 68 pages, half size, offset print, $2.00 by hand, $4.00 by mail. interviews with Christ on Parade, Andrew Jackson Jihad, Paige Hearn and Alan Short. Writings by Shane Halvorson, Tre Baker and Mark “Sledge” Howe. Artwork by Nate Powell. Photo credits: Siobhan King, Monycka Snowbird, Paige Hearn, Shane Halvorson, Lindsey Gaither, Meredith Bennett and Julie Halvorson. Stencil by stencilpunks.org. It’s been way too long since someone put out a quality punk zine like this one. Get yours from the source if you won’t be seeing me Friday: Send $4.00 to: FLUKE FANZINE, PO BOX 41931, TUCSON, AZ 85717-1931
I was sent a link to iO9’s write-up of Alex Cox’s recent Non-Sequel to his classic Repo Man film today by my nickname: Rebel cohort Michael Keegan. It was too early in the day to absorb. This was the first I had heard of any such sort of venture. I sort of peeked at it a couple of times. I sent it to someone else. Her response was “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” Which seems to be the general reaction. I’m gonna say that’s a good thing. I want to see this movie.
Here’s the trailer:
Alex Cox has a blog. He talks a bit about the development and making of Repo Chick, as well as his repo turf war with Universal.
The Sci-fi grind classic, 1995’s cassette debut by James Kopta’s Exploding Corpse Action, has been made available to you, at no charge, by the delightful True Punk & Metal blog. It is the most devastating 10 minutes of metal ever recorded. Go get it!
American TV and movies have pretty much always sucked at getting punk right. This and an episode of Quincy tend be remembered as classic quotable examples of this from a certain era. As a side note, my brother had the nickname “After School Special” in high school. He wasn’t particularly punk. Now you can watch the whole thing online. (found a version with somewhat better sound) Share and enjoy.
It’s just become a blanket in the baby section at Target. Or, for the truly hardcore, TGI Friday’s has the Pink Punk Cosmo on it’s cocktail menu.
Slightly more mystifying is this t-shirt that is part of Shaun White’s (Olympic gold medalist snowboarder, sponsored by Target since 2002) fashion line. It sparked a small argument when I wondered why a Mat Brinkman T-Shirt was on sale at Target; which was quickly countered by ‘who the hell is that?, it’s Shaun White’. To which I replied ‘who the hell is that’. So there you go. It might be slightly more interesting if Shaun White did art like this than if it was Mat Brinkman, some other Fort Thunder related person, or someone unknown doing that style.
And now the punchline
While trying to find a usable photo of the Pink Punk Cosmo for this post I discovered that TGI Friday’s have been using the song Hayseed Rock by Tight Bro’s From Way Back When off their 2001 Kill Rock Stars LP Runnin’ Thru My Bones as their website theme-song since at least May, 2009. It’s still up there. Apparently the song also featured in a TGIF TV commercial that I’ve been unable to find a copy of on the interwebs. I’ve put the word out on the tweetsphere and friendspace and expect to provide some background on this amazing collision in the future.
If you are a New Yorker, then it is quite likely that you are often confused by how people who are not perceive New Yorkers. New York is a very large state (about 55,000 square miles, kinda sorta halfish the size of the UK or Italy) and many of the interesting parts are not in New York City and are actually quite a long drive from it. Despite this, if you tell someone that you are from New York they immediately assume you are from Manhattan, which is only one small part of New York City. After that they usually ask you things like ‘do jews celebrate Thanksgiving’ and repeat things they heard on the Sopranos to you, like that could somehow be endearing. Worst case scenario: Sienfeld is mentioned. As that is a whole other topic we’ll leave it aside for now. What is really confusing about how New York is perceived by the rest of the world (or at least the rest of America), is why so many restaurants are decorated with New York Subway motifs, maps, photos, etc. Who in their right mind would want to try and enjoy a meal while surrounded by depictions of the filthiest, smelliest, most disgusting and by far the least reliable transit system in the world? You’ve seen it many times, in the Subway chain of sandwich shops, in countless pizzerias and possibly most of all in bagel shops.
By far the worst offender in this later category is the Noah’s/Einstein chain with 600 bagelries in 36 states. It was at one of their Noah’s located in San Jose California that I found myself staring at their dodgy subway platform decor and began to wonder about these things. I then made another discovery. The framed posters of New York City that hang on their walls were riddled with blatant inaccuracies. Wrong Dates, wrong places, wrong cities… How could this be? Thousands of these posters must have been sold all over the world! Most to dubious bagel shops and pizzerias no doubt.
It all starts with a cuckoo clock. It’s a fitting tribute to the director of F for Fake, master liar Orson Welles, who famously remarked in the film The 3rd Man, “in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” It’s a small lie apparently handed down from Mark Twain, and it has no real bearing on his central argument. Anyway, the Third Man was released in the US in early 1950, debuting in New York on the eve of my father’s 14th birthday on February 2. So, we have a very popular, somewhat muddy image, depicting Times Square on a cold and wet day in early 1950, forever marked as being 1942-either days or months after the US had entered the war-but clearly showing a sign for a film made seven years later that depicts the events of post-World War Two Vienna. And it hangs in eateries, homes, dorms and undoubtedly countless net cafes around the world. Is there no justice? No Peace? No truth? What does this all mean? Why the fuck do I even care? How could something so wrong continue unchallenged? Call your Senator, call Amway for Christ sakes, something must be done!
I found out I was not alone in my discovery, a couple of other blogger types noticed it too… but the funny part was, all dated the photo to the year of the Third Man’s initial release in 1949, even though it had not been shown in the US yet. Eat it nerd! I have outdone thee! Proudly representing from the über geeky South Bay, this is Marc A signing off (and I could give a crap about Noah’s crap-ass decor, WTF with this whipped cream cheese?).
My mother, Roberta Juracka, one of the longest working women in American television, drawn by a young me. Found in a bizarre Catholic baby book at my late grandmother’s house. No clear indication on my final status as a soldier of christ. (picture after the jump!)
This is, of course, also true for artists, makers, crafters, and all other manner of geek, electronic whiz, computer genius, hacker, basement and garage tinkerer and eccentric; but, I’ve found that it is the music connection that really resonates (sorry, pun) with people, and has brought in the most luscious booty. Most recent example – pictured above – my aunt-in-law Joan had accumulated a whole bag of wall warts that did not match anything she actually uses. So they were donated to me. When I saw the wealth of 9-volt adapters and the venerable Archer universal, I nearly wept with joy (if you are a musician, especially a guitarist, this makes perfect sense to you and you share in my joy as part of that universal brotherhood. Let no more be spoken).
My favorite example of this was when I was at a friend of a friend’s farm in upstate New York a few years ago, and he was giving us the grand tour… we stop in a corner of his garage and he hands me a Garden Weasel. “You’re a musician, right? This has got a real cool sound, I’m sure you can use it” No joke, that thing sounds awesome. Fly the freak flag.
Bow Wow Wow | C30 C60 C90 Go! | EMI 1980
This is the first in a series of what will hopefully be regular Friday posts of possibly forgotten items from the past that had a huge influence on the rise of punk/DIY culture, Wow Cool and me personally. This started out from noticing I was getting re-turned on to books, music, etc. that were very important at one point in life, but had become forgotten. In the future, the items will be run without additional commentary. Thanks to Erik from Xeroid Records for turning me on to this video. Share and Enjoy!
Andrew Gerhan is front and center in Time Out New York’s ‘I, New York’ feature in this week’s issue. Andrew twiddled knobs, arranged mics, rode the faders like Hopalong Cassidy, and even played a few odd parts for nickname: Rebel a few months back in sessions for the nearly completed New Rock Church of Fire LP. Now it seems he is flying the freak flag high and brandishing his sizzling whiskers in the little known neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn as a “freelance music engineer”. Andy discusses Thomas Pynchon, particle physics, coffee and more with the popular entertainment weekly. We wish Andrew well in this new dangerous land, but hope he returns one day to visit us in the Bay Area.
Romanesco… I’m far from the first to come across this crazy broccoli meets Benoit Mandelbrot thing, but I could not resist its charms–especially for 90 cents at the local farmers’ market. I’ll try not to let it sit for too long before I steam it up with some garlic. But… Wow. Just wow.
Sticker pack for the Stick Me Hard Show at Musma Gallery in Brussels. Hopefully it will make it there in time and not get stuck in customs forever for smelling like paint…
I’ve been drawing this bunny character for like 20 years and he rarely looks the same way twice…
Stick Me Hard! is an upcoming International Exhibition of handmade stickers, posters and stencyls at Musma Gallery in Belgium. Local sticker legend Mr. The Gritboy has pulled the stencils out of storage to make a go at contributing. This is just a small gallery of artifacts from one nights work. Pretty ghastly stuff. See some examples of the vastly superior work by the other contributors on Musma’s flickr page.
Grit Boy is back (up against the wall, you know, so to speak), and he prefers Session Beer.
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