After Ian (anarchy)

Cover of Les Dani de Nouvelle Guinee, Vol. 1 (r) and 2 (l)

Hurricane Ian has been highly disruptive in many aspects of life. Today marks two weeks since it struck just a little north from where I am. Unlike some others I know, I was lucky and only had to deal with a foot of water in my studio and fallen trees. I only got back to work in my studio three days ago. The result above, is based on the cover images of two French research recordings, Volumes 1 and 2 from Les Dani de Nouvelle Guinee. [CRAVA/nordsud music, 2001] A track from each volume is listed in the Top 100 this year. I'll be more specific in a moment but now I'd like to write a few words about my experience with Ian. I learned something about myself these past two weeks, and this is that I'm fairly conservative; I don't like the lawlessness observed since Ian struck; I don't like anarchy. Growing up in the punk-rock era I always applauded the idea of anarchy. Anarchy was leftist revolution, so I thought, but now I see the world reversed. Now that some parts of 70s/80s ideologies have been accomplished, revolutionary ideas have shifted to the right in an effort to undo these accomplishments. I don't like it at all! Regardless of political leaning I see that humanity, in the context of hierarchies, is anarchy at heart. 

As far away from the realities of the aftermath of a natural disaster in the US, is the music of the Dani people of the Western New Guinea (Irian Jaya) province of the Republic of Indonesia. The two volumes of Les Dani de Nouvelle Guinee are filled to the max with gems of ethnographic recordings. From Volume 1 comes, like last year, Cour D’amour, Air Doux, Tiom, a beautiful example of polyphonic singing by men and women, and from Volume 2 Live beetle jew's harp, where a live (and buzzing) beetle is attached to a wooden splinter and is used like a jew's harp. I am mesmerized by this instrument both for its aesthetic charm and the concept of the extension of the human voice by using a live animal. However beautiful the music, it was not the main objective of the three researchers who compiled the cds, but came to study the traditional making and trading of salt. The three anthropologists are Anne-Marie and Pierre Petrequin, and Olivier Weller. Weller was also the photographer on the expedition and I assume he is responsible for the source images for the above painting that appeared on the cover of the cds. I did not paint Olivier Weller but did put Anne-Marie and Pierre Petrequin together in a double portrait. 

Pierre and Anne-Marie Petrequin

Back to States and to the time when the punk-rock atmosphere was still imbuing the minds of young people with ideals of equality, freedom, and other such good things. Pere Ubu came of age during the same period I did too. Mostly active in the 80s the band was a regular high-achieving band in my Top 100 lists of the 90s and both Laughing and Waiting for Mary had been listed during that decade. Laughing, in the classic line-up that I've painted: Tom Herman; Tony Maimome; Allen Ravenstein; Scott Krauss; and David Thomas, is from The Modern Dance [Plan 9, 1978] while Waiting for Mary is a recording from the live TV show Night Music [NBC, 1988-1990] hosted by David Sanborn. In the performance, from 1989, Tom Herman had been replaced by Jim Jones and Chris Cutler, and the band is backed by a slew of renown musicians including Sanborn himself, and Debbie Harry of Blondie.

David Thomas; Scott Krauss; Tom Herman of Pere Ubu

Tony Maimone; Allen Ravenstine of Pere Ubu

There's one more painting that's somewhat new that I need to display and talk about, even though I already did so in the context of the 100 Faces from the Top 100 2022 preview painting from earlier this year. First I'll copy what I wrote on May 11th about the people portrayed: "The record Musica Sveciae: Fornnordiska Klanger means a lot to me as I'm interested in prehistoric art and the origin of music. Professor Cajsa Lund, who produced the record, and her collaborator Äke Egevad are professionals who research bot interests and use archaeological evidence to reconstruct sounds from the prehistoric era. Two tracks from the album are listed in the top 100: the sound of a bull-roarer and a performance on the Kantflöjter (flute)." Only one painting will suffice for the two tracks since there are no other individuals I know of associated with the two works of music-archaeology.

Äke Egevad/Cajsa Lund

Miniatures (Top 100 2022)

Allen Ravenstine, Pere Ubu

David Thomas, Pere Ubu

After a little break for a while I'm ready to start the next series of 100, the Top 100 2022. While it was clear for a while already I would stay close to the double portrait concept used in 2021, I am going to make some changes in the process. Looking back on the Top 100 2021, I found that the juxtaposition, or contrast of object and subject was hardly ever as black and white as I had imagined. In stead of focusing on the differences between the people portrayed, I'm now treating them as equal. There's always a relationship between two people (or more) involved in the making of a recording and this relationship is usually much more egalitarian, at least today, as the colonialist attitude of the earlier 20th century I took as a vanishing point last year. Even within early ethnomusicological recordings I found that the relationship between object and subject was often based on equality, certainly not as dismissive as it is portrayed in contemporary criticism. 

I've started collecting the images of the people who will feature in the top 100. It's a mix of familiar faces (to me) and new ones. To become familiar with the musicians, musicologists, and producers of the recordings in the list I thought I would paint a bunch of miniatures onto a canvas. As I did with the two larger recent canvases I am planning to paint 100 miniatures on it. I organized the canvas in such a way that all 100 portraits have a 4x4 inch square available to them. I neatly gridded out the canvas. I will present the images on here in series of 10 at a time. I have now 45 done. Here's the painting thus far. Below it I'll zoom in on the individual people with a little commentary to go with it.

100 Faces of the Top 100 2022, in progress, 24x36 inches

The first images I'll zoom into are all related to the band The Ex. Several of their songs already secured a spot in the 2022 list even though that list is nowhere near completion. The first one to enter was the song Eoleyo, written by the famous Ethiopian composer and percussionist Mulatu Astatke. Eoleyo is not a famous Astatke song, it was only released locally on cassette tape, but the audience at a concert in Addis Ababa burst out in ecstatic approval. The vocal at the concert are by Katharina Borneveld, who is usually the drummer for The Ex. For the occasion Han Bennink, the most famous of Dutch drummers, sat in. Terrie Ex (Terrie Hessels) is the only one from the six portraits below whom I painted before. He produced the record Ilital: New Ethiopian Dance Music, from which Gue by Tirudel Zenebe is listed high in the Top 100. Another famous Ethiopian musician, the saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria, did a whole tour with The Ex. She Ilelle, in the Top 100, was performed on one of those occasions (Groningen.) Andy Moor is the third Ex member I painted. Here are all six:

Tirudel Zenebe

Getatchew Mekuria

Han Bennink

Andy Moor

Katharina Bornefeld

Terrie Ex

The final two images illustrate two songs in one by Cathy Berberian. Her album magnifiCathy I had on tape in the 90s and was thrilled to find a copy on vinyl in a second hand record store in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Both songs, A Flower and The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs, by the composer John Cage. A Flower (1950) has no words, just sounds, while the text of The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs (1942) is based on a passage in James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. The musical score to accompany both songs was written for closed piano (the lid closed so that the piano becomes a percussion instrument.)

John Cage

Cathy Berberian

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 5-Pere Ubu