Our fine friends at Sparkplug Books are getting set to publish three new titles – the first big batch since founder Dylan Williams’ passing last year – and they need your help to make it happen. There is an excellent array of reward items, including original art and t-shirts. Get yourself over to Indiegogo and help them out.

Sparkplug Comics is ready to take on new publishing projects and we’d like to ask your help!

This campaign is a fundraiser for three of Sparkplug Books’ upcoming publishing projects.  Our soonest release, scheduled for April of 2012, is the graphic novel Nurse Nurse, by Katie Skelly.  This book compiles the previously self-published first seven issues of Katie’s ongoing sci-fi saga of nurses traversing the planets of our solar system.  The new book includes an eighth chapter to conclude the story.  The book has a two-color cover and black and white interior.

Our next two projects come from artists with whom Sparkplug has worked on multiple books in our past.  Reich, a series by Elijah Brubaker, is the ongoing biography of eminent sexologist Wilhelm Reich; this will be issue 9.  Olga Volozova, who has released Rock That Never Sleeps (a collaboration with Juliacks) and The Airy Tales through Sparkplug, brings us The Golem of Gabirol.  Each of these will have full color covers and black and white interior pages.

These books are of special import not only because they are amazing in themselves, but because they are the last projects on which Sparkplug founder Dylan Williams was working before he died of cancer in September 2011.  We are honored to see these through to completion and work with such great talent.

Sparkplug has had a long working relationship with Portland company Brown Printing and we intend to use them again to get these books printed out.  Currently the layouts are complete for each project and finishing touches are being made before they are sent to Brown.  The money from this fundraiser will go towards printing costs of each book, as well as shipping costs for the books and other gifts we are offering as perks.

Please join us in making these books a reality!  Donate to the Sparkplug fundraiser today!

DONATION PERKS!

• $5 New mini comic Brad Trip, published in collaboration with other Portland small press companies,  plus postcards & sticker
• $15 All of above, plus Nurse Nurse book
• $25 All of above, plus Reich #9 (printing in June 2012)
• $35 All of above, plus Golem of Gabirol (printing in August 2012)
• $55 All of above, plus one grab bag Sparkplug title
• $65 All of above, plus tee shirt (choose from Renee French, Dylan Williams or Austin English designs while styles and sizes last)
• $100 All of above, plus three Sparkplug grab bag items & poster
• $200 All of above, plus original signed artwork by Sparkplug artists Chris Cilla, Aron Nels Steinke, Trevor Alixopoulos, Jeff Levine, and others.
• $300 All of above, plus invite to movie night party at Sparkplug Headquarters.  Pick out a movie, get tour of our facilities and drink beer / eat snacks with us.

Yes, it is I. The irregular Wow Cool link dump. Usually posted on a Monday or Tuesday, often in two parts, often skipping many weeks. We are well back from the holidays, and therefore it is time to obliterate every open tab and share the good bits that emerge.

We open with the fight song from of the original St. Trinnian’s films. As you may have heard, St. Trinnian’s creator Ronald Searle passed away a few days ago. He has been remembered far and wide. I tried and failed to find what I thought would be the perfect image to present, so I went with the video instead. If you are going to read only one obituary of the late British cartoonist, you should read the one by Steven Heller in the New York Times. And, hey, I actually liked the newer St. Trinnian’s films.

If you have a couple days to spare you really should take the time to read this interview with amigo Steve Bissette – part of the Comics Reporter holiday interview series. I could list about half of the rest as must reads too, but I’ll let you pick your own favorites.

I was hit totally from left field to see that the Comics Journal had run this astoundingly comprehensive profile of the great Motorbooty zine assembled by Frank Santoro. Mark Dancey is the man and make no doubt.

Our late friend and inspiration Dylan Williams, of Sparkplug Comics, is being chronicled in bloggy fashion at the DYLAN WILLIAMS ARCHIVES – The life and work of Dylan F. Williams 1970 – 2011. “We are attempting to archive the life and work of Dylan Williams: Collected writings, comics, artwork, sketches, letters, stories, photos and tributes. This is an ongoing project compiled by Dylan’s friends and family. If you have something you would like to contribute, please write to tom (at) iwilldestroyyou (dot) com” If you knew Dylan, then the Amazon reviews will make you chuckle and miss him all the more. I lied a couple paragraphs ago, you also must read this Comics Reporter holiday interview with the current proprietors of Sparkplug.

I would be amiss to not give a shout-out to Sean T. Collins for giving us a Shout-out in this post-holiday roundup of amazing comics stuff. It’s part three of… how many? Does this guy ever sleep? So much goodness out there.

In related news, CBR’s Robot 6 has gone into overdrive the last few days (while most of us were relaxing) with great news, bits, previews and more. Seriously, too much to mention, just start digging.

And give special attention to this Robot 6 exclusive preview of titles coming from Koyama Press in 2012. We’ve just added a couple more Koyama titles to the shop here at Wow Cool. Snatch those up, because they are low in quantity and not likely to be reprinted.

OK… in more related news, just one more specific Robot 6 link, and another Koyama-related bit, even… you should really read their recent interview with Michael DeForge, who is also one of the featured artists at Wow Cool.

I’m not sure if Wednesday or Thursday is new comics day where you are. All I know is Paul Grist’s Mudman issue 2 is out from Image. Go get that!

I’m sure I could go on… but I refuse. Carry on… single file, begone with you!

Link dumpage composed while listening to Tom Ravenscroft sitting in for Gideon Coe on BBC 6Music.

Kid Kameleon at SF MusicTech 2009 - photo by Marc Arsenault

It’s always really nice when a thing leads to another thing and you discover a whole other world of awesome music and art that you did not previously know existed. The art and science of discovery is something that drives the marketers wild and makes us passionate ones crazy. Today saw a series of intriguing finds spurred by the usual Friday afternoon listen at Wow Cool HQ of the excellent Tom Ravenscroft show on BBC 6Music. The guest mix on the show was by local favorite Kid Kameleon (Site, Twitter), who I’d photographed and seen perform at SF MusicTech a couple years ago.

Discoveries:
The Kid Kameleon Mix Archive – hours of listening
Next stop on that world opening up was this post: The King Deluxe label is one year old. This was my first exposure to Canadian-based collective King Deluxe and to the artist HR-FM. I need more! Many more discoveries are to be made in Kid Kameleon’s blog.

At Wow Cool central in Cupertino, CA, we will be celebrating All Hallow’s Read next week, by giving scary books to family and friends and offering it as an option to trick-or-treaters that come to the door on Monday, October 31. A big thanks to TopShelf publishing for providing many copies of their latest Free Comic Book Day tome for kids. We’re getting the jump on the plan for 2012 to offer FCBD twice a year.

I’ve been watching Lis Sladen play Sarah Jane Smith on TV since Doctor Who first debuted on PBS in the US, beginning with Tom Baker’s first story ‘Robot’ some 30 or more years ago. I didn’t even know she was sick. She will be much missed. The image above is a screen shot I took 20 years ago for possible use in a Brown Cuts Neighbors project. It is from the Doctor Who story Pyramids of Mars. BBC news story. BBC YouTube Sarah Jane playlist.

And then it all went to hell. A week ago we were locked inside here on the west coast of America dreading the radioactive plume that had drifted our way from Japan. It was a cold rainy day that did, truly feel odd. Like the radiation made your bones ache and your thyroid twitch a little. I have no idea how much the exposure was then, or now; nor do I have any clue as to what effects, if any there have been or will be. I do know I am most worried for my friends in Japan; and, I do know quite a bit about the types of reactors at Fukishima and their history with their designers and suppliers of three of them. I know this because I grew up in Schenectady, New York. Schenectady was once a major American industrial city, and they did something special there. They refined plutonium… right outside of downtown on Peek Street. And on a couple of occasions it exploded. A decade ago, the building where they did this went down in flames. That same week I was working on a documentary on the history of GE and early atomic development in Schenectady: The city that lights and hauls the world.

A few days ago, documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis posted to his blog for the BBC part 6 of his series Pandora’s Box: A is For Atom (embedded above). You absolutely must watch this film.

The film shows that from very early on – as early as 1964 – US government officials knew that there were serious potential dangers with the design of the type of reactor that was used to build the Fukushima Daiichi plant. But that their warnings were repeatedly ignored.

The film tells the story of the rise of nuclear power in America, Britain and the Soviet Union. It shows how the way the technologies were developed was shaped by the political and business forces of the time. And how that led directly to inherent dangers in the design of the containment of many of the early plants.

Those early plants in America were the Boiling Water Reactors. And that is the very model that was used to build the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Three of them were supplied directly by General Electric.

In 1966 the US government Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards tried to force the industry to redesign their containment structures to make them safer. But the chairman of the committee claims in the film that General Electric in effect refused.

There is a whole chapter in the book At Any Cost: Jack Welch, General Electric, and the Pursuit of Profit dedicated to GE’s nuclear history that you should read.

The theme song to this show is, of course, the title, and final track from Brian Eno’s Here Come the Warm Jets

Today is also the 32nd anniversary of the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown.

Portrait of Mike Bonanno by Marc Arsenault

When it comes to mischief-making with a porpoise, the Yes Men have no equal! Mike Bonanno is bringing never-before-seen footage and behind-the-scenes insights from the latest Yes Men hijinks to launch the Spring 2011 season at Troy, New York’s Sanctuary for Independent Media… and he’s ready to share some secrets, too!

How did the Yes Men derail Chevron’s latest multi-million dollar greenwashing campaign? Are they worried about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lawsuit against them?

Go to 3361 6th Avenue in North Troy, New York at 7 PM on Tuesday, March 8, 2011 for this and more! Admission by donation ($10 suggested, $5 student/low income).

Fantagraphics Books’ long running magazine of comics news, criticism and whatnot, The Comics Journal, officially handed over the curation of it’s interwebs iteration TCJ.com to the motley band at Comics Comics. Re-launched on Sunday, March 6th, 2011, with a brand new look and an opening editorial from Dan Nadel and Tim Hodler, TCJ.com is the nicest and freshest it has looked in years. We will see in the coming weeks what kind and frequency of content we can expect from the new stable of columnists, which includes the whole Comics Comics team and a host of others. I expect great things from Sean T. Collins in his new interview series Say Hello and am curious what novelist Tom DeHaven will be bringing to the show. No word on if Brian Chippendale has been enticed to bring his Marvelous Coma blog over to the site. Granted he hasn’t had a new post in over half a year, but I remain optimistic. In related news, Lightning Bolt starts it’s Spring tour in just a few weeks. Go check that.

In the meanwhile, it was also announced on Sunday by Jay Babcock that “Arthur, such as it is, is set to close March 15, 2011.” In the weeks before the announcement, the Arthur site had been posting a great deal of content from its mid-decade print version including a number of comics that hadn’t been seen since. The Arthur comics pages were edited by Jordan Crane and Sammy Harkham, then Tom Devlin, then Alvin Buenaventura. In the last two years as online-only, Jason Leivian of Floating World Comics has been the comics editor. Among the artists presented are David Lasky, Megan Kelso and Souther Salazar. Some kind of an incomplete history is on the Wikipedia. Arthur was a very influential magazine during it’s few years run in the mid-00s. It was sort of a bold fusion of 80s fanzine* and new journalism sensibilities fused to whatever was going on in the middle of the century’s first decade. Good stuff. We can now officially miss it.

UPDATE: For further reading, I direct you to Tom Spurgeon’s The Comics Reporter for his interview with Dan and Tim about the TCJ.com take over. Tom also covers Arthur closing and notes in this post that the Comics Journal’s notorious message board has been shuttered. I salute his professionalism and restraint regarding any mention of a certain cartoon figure who also is known for having a portrait of him by Sam Henderson.

*For the curious, I’m thinking of 80s fanzines like Forced Exposure, No Mag and Chemical Imbalance. Thanks to Jay Babcock for checking in here and correcting some of my Arthur facts (you know, like placing it in the wrong decade)

There used to be a great feature in the magazine The Comics Journal called the swipe file, where a classic piece of comic art was held up next to a more recent piece that usually resembled it a bit too much to be mere coincidence. The best know modern version is, of course, the You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice, But We Did… blog. Here’s a classic I stumbled across today while digging through a library sale trying to complete my collections of John Le Carre novels and Speedball Pen calligraphy manuals:

On the left we have: Paul Rand‘s cover to Czeslaw Milosz’s The Captive Mind from Vintage, 1953

On the right is: Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad: A Pseudoclassical Tragifarce in a Bastard French Tradition by Arthur L. Kopit, A Spotlight Dramabook, 1960. Cover design by Alex Tsao.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions…

The multi-talented Mark Sunshine (singer of Monster Magnet splinter faction Riot God and an artist most awesome) has updated his site again. Minimal, bold, and links to greatness.

Sam McPheeters of Vermiform/Born Against/etc. fame has released a collection of his early 1990s Hardcore Punk Zine Dear Jesus, as a velo-bound collection. Wow Cool still has a few copies of the first of his Shooting Space zine available.

Dear Jesus was a hardcore punk fanzine I produced between 1989 and 1992. There were four full issues, and a mini-issue I made 50 copies of and sold at one show in 1990. Everything is included in this collection. The anthology totals 140 pages, with a new intro, color cover, and sturdy velo binding. More work by Sam is available on BuyOlympia.com.

These five issues include interviews with Jello Biafra, Richie Birkenhead (of Underdog & Youth Of Today), Doc Dart (this is the piece that led, 17 years later, to my Vice Magazine profile “The Troublemaker”), Econochrist, Lifesblood, CBGB owner Hilly Kristal, Ian MacKaye, Maximumrocknroll, Mike BS (of ABC No Rio), Mykel Board (of MRR), Nation Of Ulysses (pictorial), Nausea, Neanderthal, No For An Answer, Revelation Records, Rorschach, Soulside, Supertouch, artist Seth Tobocman, Swiz, and Tit Wrench. This collection also includes articles on the first Gulf War, punk in Latin America, an extensive Born Against tour diary, and many, many painfully opinionated reviews. Dear Jesus was one of the most consistent hardcore punk zines to document the early 1990′s ABC No Rio scene in New York. If this is a historical period that interests you, then this is perhaps something you will want to own.

Last, and far from least. Today’s absolute must-read is this post from Adam Curtis on his blog at the BBC – “RUPERT MURDOCH – A PORTRAIT OF SATAN“
Related Reading: Charlie Brooker’s “Q: When does a tabloid become crude propaganda? A: When it starts printing it” in the Guardian.

Enjoy

Found in an old book at my neighbor’s moving sale.

This book is an endless source of wonder and speculation. I can spend hours imagining the adventures of the Easy Wizards. I saw this little sticker book randomly in one of those little over-priced toy stores that inexplicably thrive in the strip-malls of central California. “You gotta be kidding. I mean, you know who this is, man? This is Captain America. I’m Billy. Hey, we’re headliners baby. We played every fair in this part of the country. I mean, for top dollar, too!” -Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider.

Video: ‘You are not alone’ by Susan Philipsz, commissioned by Modern Art Oxford for the Radcliffe Observatory, Green Templeton College, Oxford, 2009. The piece is based on radio interval signals that have been played on a vibraphone.

Interview at the Guardian: Susan Philipsz: Sonic boom
Susan Philipsz has won the Turner prize – using just her own voice. So was her night marred by the student protests? How did she get into sound art? And what’s this about a run-in with Stephen Fry?

There are certain things that are constant to Brooklyn. Egg sandwiches are easy to come by, coffee is served with milk, not cream, and the best places all serve Boars Head meats. This place on Prospect Park West is extra special… they have Board’s Head.

Non-Ultra Ivory. Sort of like Coke Classic. Right? WTF? Non-Ultra???

From the CMJ 2010 Festival Guide. We get 17 pages of the Artist Guide before an under-diligent graphic artist slips and leaves the template text – “page title” in. Then, a few more properly labeled pages and a spectacular nine pages of “page title”

From a recent series on the MTA’s subway cars, this one on an F Train. “Trees. Mother Nature’s Version of Zen” Part of the Million Trees NYC campaign. Sorry guys… the yin yang/iChing symbol is Taoist… not really zen. Look it up.

Vintage ad in the MTA Transit Museum

I live in Cupertino, we have i-everything here. even an iRestaurant… The CDTA – Capital District Transportation Authority of the Albany New York area has something special. Their new buses are the iRide.

In Brooklyn I live in Windsor Terrace… it has a serious history of hardworking firefighters, police, sanitation workers and soldiers. Memorials to those dead or wounded in battle are on nearly every corner… on one block (the cobble stoned stretch in front of Holy Name church made famous in “As Good As It Gets”) the memorial plaques are placed at the foot of every tree. Little could be more tragic than this ominous monolith that sits in Bartel-Pritchard Square. The War Memorial was erected in 1965, on the eve of US escalation of the conflict in Vietnam. A decade of death followed that surely took more than its share of Brooklynites.

Lady Gaga and Dr. Dre mashup. Both have headphones from Monster. Did something go wrong here?

Underwear Goes Inside The Pants. I played the hell out of this when it came out four or so years ago. No idea if this is the Lazy Boy project of Rob daBank’s or someone else. It’s still pretty damn funny. As reported in The New York Times today, Greg Giraldo has died at age 44.

Today was a sad day for me. Today was the last we would hear Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC Radio 1. I imagine there is just a week to listen again on the iPlayer as usual… No fears, she has plenty going on, as detailed on her new website MaryAnneHobbs.com. I’ve been listening to Mary Anne every week for as long as she’s been on the BBC’s internet stream… previously with the Breezeblock show and in the last few years the Experimental Show. I have a hard time imagining any kind of replacement on radio for this kind of steady sequence of electronic musicalawesomeness.

The last month or so has seen the end of many cultural bits I’ve gotten used to. Brian K. Vaughan’s Ex Machina has ended. The final Scott Pilgrim volume has been released and the movie is out. Bad Machinery is about to take a break for a fortnight at least a month and a half, and that will be a long and lonely six or more weeks.

Let’s flash back now to a year ago….

This week and a half last year saw events in comic book publishing and music videogames that clearly signaled that we entered a new era in popular culture. It all came to a head on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 with the announcement of major shakeups at DC Comics and with the release of The Beatles Rock Band.

The Beatles Rock Band and Johnny Cash and Kurt Cobain as playable figures in the videogame Guitar Hero 5 just depress me. It feels deeply wrong in so many ways.

Although DC Comics has been owned by Warner Bros. Studios (now a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. (TWX)) for four decades, the publisher has enjoyed a certain autonomy from it’s corporate parent, with management and editorial largely coming from within the comics community (the notable exception being Janette Kahn). On that Wednesday that all ended.

On the proverbial other side of the street, Marvel Comics was absorbed by Disney.

At some future point this changeover will likely be framed as being similar to the collapse of the Hollywood studio system in the middle of the 20th Century and its takeover by faceless corporations.

I appreciate that Warner’s move was a smart move, and probably long overdue. More than anything, it serves as a historic sign post that the change is there and that it is permanent.

I hope that efforts like Vertigo and the sadly discontinued Minx will continue under this new regime to foster new talent, but I know that the reality is that the focus will be on developing new properties to exploit, and finding new ways to exploit the old ones.

I find it charming that the Marvel workers will be ‘cast members’. That’s certainly an elevation from such demeaning titles as ‘the talent’ or ‘creatives’. As Warner and Paul Levitz showed us a year ago in unprecedented tragic fashion, if you work for these companies you are just a tool.

Character Licensing Farms…

Gone are the free range, grass-fed superheroes of old.

Maybe people will start to understand where Alan Moore is coming from, instead of dismissing him as a nut. [Clearly something is in the air this week, please go read this interview with Alan Moore about his troubles with DC Comics, and then go read Tom Spurgeon's commentary, where, as always, he delves into these basic creators' rights issues far more eloquently than I can.]

It’s sad. It should serve as a wake up call for creators on how much of their life and their work they want to give to a big entertainment Corp.

Levitz going back to writing the Legion after all that is profoundly tragic.

Enjoy the fucking feedback loop

I predict a serious exodus of talent and many new and exciting ventures.

Who knows…

Missed it Dept.: Bryan Young at Huffington Post has an exclusive eight-page preview of Mat Johnson and Simon Gane’s Dark Rain graphic novel about New Orleans during Katrina published by Vertigo. Dark Rain was released on August 24, 2010 (the preview is from the 22nd) Here is a choice paragraph from his review:

The book doesn’t just tackle the heist story, though, it captures a taste of the horror and confusion of the days after the hurricane and the immense sense of depression and loss that must have been present in the Superdome while residents waited far too long for aid. In fact, there were more than a couple of moments in the book set in the Superdome that almost brought tears to my eyes.

Jimmy Page has a website… well, he has a hint that a website is coming. You can sign up for updates. We expect great things.

The latest installment of Kate Beaton’s “Hark, A Vagrant”, which has a Nancy Drew theme, is a corker!

NSFW Department. This cover of an Asian RCA Victor LP that prominently displays a woman’s right nipple is one of the best record covers ever. On LP Cover Lover.

Music and art powerhouse Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt, Ninja) has started a web comic on PictureBox’s site called Puke Force.

I’m looking forward to seeing Stanley Donwood’s exhibit of new paintings – over normal – at Fifty24SF Gallery when I get back to the Bay Area next week. They are very much in the style of the art he created for Radiohead’s Hail To The Thief and its singles.

The much loved Betty Davis talks about her life with Miles and inspiring Bitches Brew‘s creation in today’s Guardian on the event of a deluxe re-issue of that classic record, that, for better and worse, gave us fusion.

And, last, we have this interview with Upstate’s Favorite James Howard Kunstler about his new novel The Witch of Hebron, which is to be released on Tuesday, September 7th.

From The Guidepost English Reader 2A. ET, The Extraterrestrial Meets the Inspector and asks to use his phone; and is given the tourist treatment. Garfield looks on approvingly. The book also features Popeye, Minnie and Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Little Duck, The Pink Panther, Little Bee and a girl named Angel. The Penguin baby promised on the back cover never appears. Printed in Taiwan?

Hosted by the great James Burke of Connections fame.

I could stare at this package all day. From a long gone golden age of design. So much more inspiring than what the same product gets today. Purchased for 50 cents at a local yard sale.

Tom Otterness’s ‘Another World’ Installation’ of bronze figures was written about here previously. The work has taken on a new incarnation as it seems the cast bronze figures are now too hot to handle from sitting in the sun and are now mostly surrounded by plastic white picket fences with taped on warning notices that you should “Please Use Caution. Artwork May Be Hot”. Surely, after so many public installations, the artist would have known better. I have to wonder… what is the true purpose of this work and how is it intended to involve the audience? How best to engage with this thermal disaster of public art?

Alternative Meat - a section in the frozen foods aisle at Whole Foods

Chinese Spaghetti Sauce

Lucky Swallow

Ethnic Hair Care - at Target. I think they mean Black

Mountain Dew Throwback - Made with real sugar

RAPE - Someone spelled out RAPE with the animal print letters at the fabric store - click to enlarge.

And, yes, Alternative Meat is a great punk rock band name. Go run with it. I don’t need it.

Sadly this clip does not include the anecdote about the night Natalie Wood took a Champagne bath that Hopper related during the interview.

The time I played slide guitar on a performance of Roy Orbison’s ‘In Dreams‘ with Brown Cuts Neighbors may be one of the dodgiest bit of playing I’ve ever done live, but it seemed to work. The true surprise for many was when Valentine’s sound guy Tim redeemed himself by grabbing the bass and saving the song.

The above is from Hermann Vaske’s excellent The Fine Art of Separating People From Their Money. I used to make everyone in my art department and all the sales reps who used our materials watch this movie.

The work and life of Dennis Hopper has meant more to me than I can begin to express. I have every single one of the movies he directed on VHS. I attended all but a couple of the screenings of his films at the massive retrospective the Film Forum in New York ran in the 1980s (including one memorable one where Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo of Sonic Youth were seated right behind me). I could go on and on. Dennis Hopper was the best living example I can think of why it is of value in life to engage with art. I suppose that’s a statement that needs some explaining. I’ll be thinking about it. I’ll be dragging out many more of the lesser known works involving Dennis Hopper over the next few days.

Obituary from the Los Angeles Times

Dennis Hopper: A Life in Pictures at the Guardian

$3.99 gets you two Toy Story army men with parachutes or an entire 40 piece army force. Which side are you on?

Please go read: 1-2-3-4 What are we Fighting For by Adam Curtis

While assembling the accounts and inventories of the past year that the IRS wants for some reason or other, I have spent an excessive amount of that time with a TV on. I have gone through an incredible number of season box sets and the like. After finishing Season Two of House M.D. I thought it would be interesting to break things up with A Bit of Fry and Laurie. It was somewhere in season one that the above gem appears. Watch it twice. It’s brilliant. I’ll wait.

When Stephen Fry got to the part about language being his whore and his mistress, I suddenly remembered a similar (and more scholarly, and not) speech he gave as a ‘podgram‘ a little over a year ago. It’s a bit longer, perhaps not as funny, and is essential listening if you are a nutter like me who likes to read Kenneth Grahame or Evelyn Waugh aloud because the words are just put together so damn good. He even references this sketch with Hugh Laurie in it.

Here’s the super-awesome bit written down for you:

Language is my mother, my father, my husband, my brother, my sister, my whore, my mistress, my check-out girl… language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Language is the breath of God. Language is the dew on a fresh apple, it’s the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning light as you pluck from a old bookshelf a half-forgotten book of erotic memoirs. Language is the creak on a stair, it’s a spluttering match held to a frosted pane, it’s a half-remembered childhood birthday party, it’s the warm, wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy, the hulk of a charred Panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl. It’s cobwebs long since overrun by an old Wellington boot.

Here is the full transcript.

You can get the whole episode on iTunes (Series One, Episode two)

HappyHollow20101, originally uploaded by Marc Arsenault – Wow Cool.

Today (Sunday March 14, 2010), San Jose’s beloved childrens’ playground and zoo, Happy Hollow reopened after a nearly two year renovation and closure. Clearly the star of the show was the installation in the entry courtyard of sculptures by Tom Otterness. “Another World”, a series of over a dozen cast sculptures installed in the entryway to Happy Hollow comes with a special coloring book. You can color it and relate your story and send it back to Tom in Brooklyn and receive a plaster sculpture back (Tom’s studio copies your book and the returns it to you). The offer is open to any age.

See my photos of the installation on flickr.

I first encountered Tom Otterness’s work in the 1983 show and catalog at Tony Shafrazi Gallery “Champions” which also featured Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ronnie Cutrone, Keith Haring, Futura 2000, Kenny Scharf and others. It was an attempt to unite this set of mid-80s New York artists, and even then, Tom Otterness was a clear outsider. (an odd aside, an instructor of mine at SVA once told me that I reminded her of Tom). This is one of Otternesses largest collections of public art (probably the largest on the West Coat), and well worth a visit. It stands as a fair substitute for the old playground fairytale exhibits at Happy Hollow (See my photos of the old Happy Hollow on flickr)

I have to admit to not being the biggest fan of the new Happy Hollow, and was quite fond of the many dilapidated playsets of the HH of old that have been retired. I think the could have managed to go more the route of Oakland’s Fairyland in keeping the old, but moving forward.

Some tips when visiting Happy Hollow.
Bring your own food. The stuff they sell is crap.
Expect the usual idiocy of any parking experience in San Jose.
There is a big area between the playground and Hallow Zoo that contains the old Crooked Man slide. Avoid this, as the house is now boarded up. No sliding will occur.
It’s not there for you, it’s there for your kids. Let them dictate how much fun it is.

UPDATE: There is a long article about the renovation in the Silicon Valley Mercury News. They also have a preview map with 360º views of the park and a collection of vintage photos and visitor memories.

I am writing regarding the news today that 6 Music is going to be closed, in the hope that you reconsider this decision. To be honest I, along with a vast number of other musicians, music industry types and real music fans, are completely shocked and baffled by this news. I wonder if those who made this decision are actually aware of the hugely important role that 6 music plays in fostering and promoting new bands, as well as still playing the likes of the band that I am in. It literally is the radio lifeblood for music outside of the mainstream. Not to denigrate Radio’s 1 and 2, but it really is the only station that puts music first, and that’s from a punters point of view and not some bloke in a band. Nowhere else can you hear an archived session track from T Rex juxtaposed next to Midlake’s latest release. As David Bowie, put it … it keeps the spirit of John Peel alive.

Please realise the impact and severity of closing this station down. It will be a huge blow for new bands and their labels. It’s not enough to ‘refocus’ Radio’s 1 and 2 as 6 music does a very specific thing. What you have with 6 Music is a gem of a radio station, it is doing what no other station in the world does or can possibly do. Remember it is also still relatively young, give it time. You also finally have a fantastic and seemingly settled line up of DJ’s. Please get behind it and from what I can gather about its annual budget of £6m, it surely punches way above its weight in terms of cultural relevance and importance.

Save 6Music Facebook Group | Love6Music.com | If you won’t listen to me you might listen to Lily Allen

On February 20, 2010, the BBC posted “Dutch cabinet collapses in dispute over Afghanistan” as the top story on their News homepage. The complicated mechanisms of content-based advertising placement brilliantly selected to display a box for the current Netherlands tourism campaign “Just Be… in Holland“. Ouch.

For some more insight on the background of the Afghan boondoggle, I highly recommend the series by Adam Curtis… also hosted by the Beeb (scroll down a bit if need be).

Sorry, I’m a couple days late on this.

UPDATE: Today’s massive Olympic fuckup involving Sven Kramer cements 2010 as a rough year for the Dutch.

DJ Shadow live in Chile 2006. photo by Leo Prieto. Licensed under Creative Commons

In 2006 DJ Shadow dropped his most recent solo album, The Outsider, and set in motion the process of creating one of the most fully-realized and successful artist sites on the web. The latest incarnation of DJShadow.com was built by Derick Daily and his team at the prestigious marketing firm Euro RSCG and DJ Shadow’s team, managed by Michael Fiebach, all under the careful control of Joshua Davis (DJ Shadow). The three-year project completed it’s final development phase and was relaunched in August 2009. As someone who is developing a label site (that would be WowCool.com, folks), that features a full online shop and artist pages, I look at DJShadow.com as an example of what can be done.

Apart from the site’s innovations as a presence for a musician online, it represents not just DJ Shadow, but also works with, and by, his collaborators from Solesides/Quannum, Cut Chemist and Cali-Tex, DJ Shadow’s personal label for funk and soul re-issues, which includes the School House Funk compilations, and the recent ‘great lost Chicago funk’ album Pieces of Peace. It’s no secret that DJ Shadow is a major record hound, and his site represents that. This is clearly the work of someone who truly loves records and wants to share that with others who appreciate that.

DJShadow.com has a clean and elegant layout. No confusion about what stuff is and where to find it. It just works. And it is deep. The archives and discography are presented in a straightforward, unpretentious style.

The signature single from The Outsider ‘This Time (I’m Gonna Try It My Way)’ can be read as a statement of the need for an artist to control how his image is presented and his work is distributed; whether you are a DIY bedroom producer or in a ‘best of both worlds’ situation like DJ Shadow, who is both a major label artist and a successful indy label owner. At least that’s how I took it when it came out. Along with the Bloc Party’s ‘The Prayer’, ‘This Time’ served as a major inspiration for me when I started to plan the relaunch of Wow Cool.

OK, enough about me.

Holding down the day-to-day at DJShadow.com is Michael Fiebach. He handles the site management; marketing, project, and distribution management and sales for independent DJ Shadow releases; merchandise management for the entire DJ Shadow product line for tour and online sales and E-Commerce management for the online store. I met Michael at the last two SF MusicTech summits. He is direct, honest and knowledgeable about the music business. We spoke in depth about the site and the DJ Shadow Handmade label for this article on December 22, 2009 and followed up by email during January, 2010. This is the first of two in-depth follow up articles with people I met at the SF MusicTech Summit.

I’m guessing the average person would have a hard time getting exactly why it’s an unique deal, the arrangement with Universal, to license back the albums for digital sale and how that works.

Yeah, I think that you put it exactly right. The common music fan has no idea…doesn’t get it… ‘oh, you’re selling downloads… well, there have been downloads for 10 years on the Internet…’ who cares? You know?

The unique thing about it, really, is that we’re the only artist site that I’ve seen, that is legitimately licensing music back from the label and selling it directly to the fan through downloads. We are licensing the music as an E-Store, just as iTunes and other major E-tailers do. I haven’t seen any independently operated artist sites that combine the downloads with physical merchandise for the entire store. We do t-shirt and download bundles and buy a CD and get the download for free; and, there are sites that do that, but not independent artist stores, and combining the merchandise with the digital downloads was something that was really hard, actually, to get done and it’s not something you see that often. We do all the fulfillment out of here ourselves. We ship all it from out of here, worldwide.

Do you know the percentage that you’re moving of digital vs. physical sales?

As far as digital compared to physical, digital is a nice piece of the pie, and it is growing…For most people, CDs are kind of tough these days…as I’m sure you know, in general, but we still do… People still want DJ Shadow limited exclusive merchandise and CDs and we just came up with some creative ways to make it available… and there, we still have plenty of interest in CDs. Overall, vinyl is still moving very well from a direct to fan perspective, and the interest in Digital is large and continually growing. When we bundle digital and physical together… that is when the real interest is sparked. From a mass distribution perspective, CDs are still the bread and butter.

Any interest in developing the site to where it’s got more kind of community type features – like profiles, things like that?

It was something we looked into for this launch, but the tough thing is that we have a pretty active community on the social networks and I just found that people like to stay on those networks. They go to Facebook anyway. They go to these other networks, and we’re on there too. I don’t have a problem with those people interacting on Facebook. I think the data spreads better and to more people when it’s on Facebook, There are millions of users on Facebook – there are not going to be that many users on DJShadow.com… so I think that as far as gaining new people to come to the site– I think it’s more useful for those people to interact at different social networks and then to come DJShadow.com to get news and buy merch and to check out videos and things like that.

Facebook has been an extremely effective tool for Shadow, and I plan to continue to use it to promote Shadow and our various online campaigns. I think Facebook has done everything right, and I did agree with the sentiment at SF Music Tech that, generally, musicians need a Facebook strategy as opposed to Facebook having a Music strategy. Facebook has all of the tools for musicians to use; it’s using them correctly that is the important part. Twitter is Twitter. Most people use it too much in my opinion. Especially for musicians… make each Tweet count for something. Over-saturating the Tweetosphere is both annoying and diminishes the importance of each message. I think we need to focus on ways to properly utilize MySpace for what it is. Regardless of what people say, MySpace is still extremely important, and has the ability to really take over the online Free Content space for music. We, as industry professionals, should help MySpace to do this as opposed to just mocking them and sitting on our hands. I think we need to utilize these networks for what they are, and bring people to our home-base through those networks. We shouldn’t try to replicate those networks on a site that will never have even close to the same effectiveness in terms of data portability.

On the handmade bundles – I’m kind of curious about the actual manufacturing and assembly of those. You’re doing 180 gram vinyl…

Right, it’s a template that’s printed, but it’s hand assembled…so it’s actually stamped – the inner sleeve of the vinyl… the actual vinyl is stamped with the title on the label of the vinyl and then the inner sleeve is stamped…and then that reads through the outer sleeve which is die cut, and then we write the customers name on the back of the vinyl. Every person that orders gets their name written in… “this vinyl belongs to…”, and we write the customers name there… and that’s for the CDs and the vinyl. It was definitely the most intense music project I ever worked on from a production stand-point. I mean, you are talking about 15 releases (CD, vinyl) not to mention the fact that we also released most of that stuff digitally as well- ALL within a few months, and even though they all fit into an art template, there is still so much that goes into each of those releases. Really fun project though, and it has been a success.

How many separate releases per year are being produced by the DJShadow.com crew?

Per year totally depends. 2009 was a record year. We did the Diminishing Returns 2 CD re-release, Schoolhouse Funk CD re-release, 6 DJ Shadow Handmade Vinyl releases, 9 Handmade CD releases, and, with the launch of the downloads section we added 9 Exclusive downloads (most of which are the same releases as the Handmade pressings), and we did a Deluxe UNKLE “Psyence Fiction” download release as well. There has never been a year like that before…. We went all-out with the relaunch of the website.

2007-2008 we did The 4-Track releases, and ‘The Hard Sell’ With Cut Chemist. Those were bigger projects that had more mass appeal other than just appealing to visitors of DJShadow.com.

Were the 4-track era releases put together solely by DJShadow.com?

The 4-track releases were put together by Shadow (the music and vision), myself (Project Management), Paul Insect and Alaric Hammond (for the art), and Mikael “Count” Eldridge (Sound enhancement). The 4-Track Box Bundle was an idea Shadow and I came up with mid-way through the first couple of releases as a way to sum-up the project at the end. The high-end 4-Track Era CD packaging and the bundles were all exclusive to DjShadow.com. We also did a VERY limited Japan release which came in different packaging than the versions offered on the site. The Box Bundle included a Bonus mix CD which was not available as a part of any of the other packaging. Overall, it was probably the most successful project ever commissioned by DJShadow.com. The Handmade Project may beat it out though, it’s close.

So, how did you get involved with DJ Shadow?

I actually got the job through the guy who had the job I have now, Bryan Utech, who I definitely give credit to for upping the merchandise game, he has a huge history with music merchandising. He worked with some big bands… Linkin Park, Kid Rock, the Strokes and some other big names. He hired me in April 2006 to run the web store and do social networking type stuff… and then he left about 5 months after I was hired, to go pursue other things and I had just kind of built up a relationship with Josh and his personal manager and business manager at that point and they just asked me to take over the whole online and merchandise operation.

So it must be going good. You’re still there 3 years later…

Yeah, in April it will be 4 years. Which is crazy. It’s been cool, I’ve gotten to tour, I have been a part of some big projects and really got to spearhead the download store and site re-launch. The touring was amazing. I can’t even… I’ll never have that experience anywhere else… it was really cool… working with Shadow is an incredible… I mean he is one of the best musicians out there, in my opinion, and definitely one of the most respected in the industry. He’s a musician’s musician. People love him and respect him, and I think that has been really good for me. He’s top notch.

So he’s a good boss?

Oh yeah…definitely.

So, what do you listen to around the office?

Ha! All types of stuff. Some of it, I don’t even know what it is… just CDs that Josh leaves around in here…old funk stuff, classic, underground hip hop… I’m a hip hop fan and grew up listening to hip hop… but I definitely still listen to alternative rock from the 90s, some classic rock… we listen to all types of stuff. It’s an eclectic mix…which is what I guess you’d expect working in the offices of DJ Shadow.

Right. Anyone you care to give a shout out to?

Definitely would give a shout out to the Quannum people, Lateef and Gift of Gab (of Blackalicious) and all the people over at Quannum…great music, great guys, they’re family. Also The High & Mighty–my friends from The Eagles games in Philly, and a huge inspiration for me getting in the music biz (Mr. Eon- when’s the next record??!!). Besides that, I’m feeling Jay Z’s new album (The Blueprint 3, in case you weren’t sure)…I love it.

Right on… OK, so I’m obliged to ask this… any kind of info on when we can expect a new DJ Shadow album?

Well, I can definitely tell you he is currently in the studio working on new music. I can’t say anything about what it sounds like, or what it is… or anything… to be honest, I don’t know. I’ve heard very small bits and pieces… but, it’s going to be surprising and, I’m sure, it’s going to be cutting edge, and dope, as it always is… but, as far as a timeline, I have no idea when something new will actually be released. All we know is that he is working on it.

What did you get from SF MusicTech? Any highlights, thoughts on the summit itself as an idea, etc. I think we basically talked at theshow about the social networking panel getting hung up on MySpace and Facebook. Anything strike you as worth relaying about the event?

I think it is a great conference. I do think some of the speakers tend to get hung up on certain issues from time to time, but overall I think it is an informative conference. I spoke on a panel at the Bandwidth conference back in August, which was similar but a little more intimate, and I also attended the last SF Music Tech Summit in Spring of 2009. It is great anytime there is an opportunity for music industry professionals to gather and discuss ideas for this business. There is so much confusion as to where the industry is headed, it is always reassuring to interact with other individuals in similar positions… I walked away from this year’s SF Music Tech Summit with a heightened awareness of the current situation in the industry, and with many ideas for Shadow’s operation. Everyone is trying to figure out the same thing: the optimal approach for monetizing music… I have gained countless contacts and business opportunities from attending these conferences, and I definitely plan to continue to attend them, and hopefully I will be given more opportunities to take part in panels, etc.

DJ Shadow In Los Angeles 10.31.09- Snippet by djshadow

DJShadow.com’s latest release is DJ Shadow In Los Angeles, 10/31/2009 available as CD & Download. Released Jan 19, 2010. Sample above.

DJ Shadow.com

Two other stories of interest you may have missed:
Luxury cruise ships are still docking at their private beaches in Haiti
Doctors Without Borders Plane with Lifesaving Medical Supplies Diverted multiple times from Landing in Haiti

This is the video I was looking for a few days ago. A lesson for me in not relying on YouTube. Gumby puts the kibosh on the blockheads latest evil scheme, a pesticide protection racket, that has the worms up in arms and gasmasks, even. Available on the DVD of Gumby: the Movie. There must be something about the process of doing stop-motion animation that breeds a deeper social consciousness. (See earlier post about Oliver Postgate). Sorry if you have to endure any commercials to get to the cartoon.

Yes, Captain Beefheart himself is 69 today. It’s no secret that he’s popular in the house of Wow Cool. Just released from Proper Records is the long-awaited biography by long-time Magic Band member and arranger John (Drumbo) French, Beefheart: Through the Eyes of Magic. It appears that the book is currently only available in the UK and Europe, and, as of this writing, it is not yet in stock from Amazon, but is available through other sellers from Amazon.co.uk. For readers of the excellent, and up-until-now definitive Beefheart Bio by Mike Barnes, it’s been a long wait for this book, as French heavily teased that he was working on his own book back then and revealed relatively little of that mystical hermetic life as a member of the Magic Band. Proper also released French’s latest album Drumbo: City of Refuge last year, and it is solidly in the Magic Band tradition and well worth getting.

John French’s MySpaceship
Interview on Perfect Sound Forever

This is the one book about sound you must read this year. I’ve been waiting for something like this for years and for this book since July. Steve Goodman, better known to the world as Kode9 of Hyperdub Records, delves into how sound has been used by government and industry to manipulate and control people.

Description from Amazon

Sound can be deployed to produce discomfort, express a threat, or create an ambience of fear or dread—to produce a bad vibe. Sonic weapons of this sort include the “psychoacoustic correction” aimed at Panama strongman Manuel Noriega by the U.S. Army and at the Branch Davidians in Waco by the FBI, sonic booms (or “sound bombs”) over the Gaza Strip, and high-frequency rat repellants used against teenagers in malls. At the same time, artists and musicians generate intense frequencies in the search for new aesthetic experiences and new ways of mobilizing bodies in rhythm. In Sonic Warfare, Steve Goodman explores these uses of acoustic force and how they affect populations.

Most theoretical discussions of sound and music cultures in relationship to power, Goodman argues, have a missing dimension: the politics of frequency. Goodman supplies this by drawing a speculative diagram of sonic forces, investigating the deployment of sound systems in the modulation of affect. Traversing philosophy, science, fiction, aesthetics, and popular culture, he maps a (dis)continuum of vibrational force, encompassing police and military research into acoustic means of crowd control, the corporate deployment of sonic branding, and the intense sonic encounters of sound art and music culture.

Goodman concludes with speculations on the not yet heard—the concept of unsound, which relates to both the peripheries of auditory perception and the unactualized nexus of rhythms and frequencies within audible bandwidths.

Order from Amazon: Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear (Technologies of Lived Abstraction)

Video from XLR8R where he talks about the book