Friday, May 11, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever
“His intensely obsessive ongoing project documenting the bands and musicians he listens to, has developed an avid following of art collectors, curators and music fans around the world”. This is what Matt Distel wrote for a exhibition announcement in Cincinnati in 2009, exaggerating my profile to attract visitors to his gallery.
That “intensely obsessive ongoing project” is called Top 100, and evolves around a yearly list of 100 recordings based on a ranking system I use in which recordings are awarded points on a weekly basis. The Top 100 is now in its thirtieth year and for the occasion I figured I’d up the obsessiveness by another degree or two. I compiled a list of 100 recordings that played a significant part in those 30 years: The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever. The list consists of all the old numbers 1 (and the new one as well), all songs that accumulated more than 100 points in those thirty years, and then a bunch of recordings subjectively selected because I felt they needed to be part of the list. The order in which the recordings appear is also subjective. The list is similar, but far from identical, from the list Continued Count, that is a simple and objective list ordered by accumulated points that I’ve kept up to date in all those years.
And it would be very unlike me if I weren’t to make illustrations for every entry in this new The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever list. So I started with a brand new sketchbook at number 100, watercoloring my way all the way down to number one.
Compiling the list and illustrating it meant for me in many cases revisiting music I hadn’t heard for a long time. Reading up on musicians that I used to follow closely but didn’t keep track of any more. I hadn’t been following their music let alone keeping up with the facts of what happened in their lives. In the case of Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed (who happen to be right beside each other in the list) I found out that they got married. They’re both musicians whose music I used to follow closely and whom I both saw perform live . In many cases I illustrated recordings with images of the musicians in question many years older than when they recorded it.
Over the next few months I will forward all 100 Greatest Recordings Ever.
All drawings are 10” x 8”, the materials used are ink, watercolor, ballpoint pen, and pencil, and all are from 2012.
That “intensely obsessive ongoing project” is called Top 100, and evolves around a yearly list of 100 recordings based on a ranking system I use in which recordings are awarded points on a weekly basis. The Top 100 is now in its thirtieth year and for the occasion I figured I’d up the obsessiveness by another degree or two. I compiled a list of 100 recordings that played a significant part in those 30 years: The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever. The list consists of all the old numbers 1 (and the new one as well), all songs that accumulated more than 100 points in those thirty years, and then a bunch of recordings subjectively selected because I felt they needed to be part of the list. The order in which the recordings appear is also subjective. The list is similar, but far from identical, from the list Continued Count, that is a simple and objective list ordered by accumulated points that I’ve kept up to date in all those years.
And it would be very unlike me if I weren’t to make illustrations for every entry in this new The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever list. So I started with a brand new sketchbook at number 100, watercoloring my way all the way down to number one.
Compiling the list and illustrating it meant for me in many cases revisiting music I hadn’t heard for a long time. Reading up on musicians that I used to follow closely but didn’t keep track of any more. I hadn’t been following their music let alone keeping up with the facts of what happened in their lives. In the case of Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed (who happen to be right beside each other in the list) I found out that they got married. They’re both musicians whose music I used to follow closely and whom I both saw perform live . In many cases I illustrated recordings with images of the musicians in question many years older than when they recorded it.
Over the next few months I will forward all 100 Greatest Recordings Ever.
All drawings are 10” x 8”, the materials used are ink, watercolor, ballpoint pen, and pencil, and all are from 2012.
Monday, May 7, 2012
More Creation
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| Lennie Hibbert 24" x 12" oil on board, 2012 |
Jonathan Ward, of Excavated Shellac fame, described his modus operandi as academic anti-academic in one his analyses of yet another excavated 70 year old disc. Brilliant, if you ask me; it doesn't describe just his outlook on things but that of the whole avant-garde as well. It could be the name given to a whole new period: modernism—post-modernism—academic anti-academic, it captures in two words a brand new reality. It contains affirmation and negation, it can be used as an excuse and as an incrimination. It's both self loathing and self congratulatory. Insiders become outsider, and outsiders insiders. The intellectuals are enamored with the non-intellectuals while the non-intellectuals become intellectualized. Books have been written by philosophers on the subject but I had never heard it summed up in two words: Academic Anti-Academic. What has this to do with the vibraphone impregnated reggae sounds of Lennie Hibbert, you may ask, and I say "everything and nothing". For reason that it is being so different from "all or nothing". What comes after Creation for Lennie Hibbert is More Creation, and more is better than less (when it comes to creation).
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Sandwidi Pierre
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| Sandwidi Pierre 24" x 12" oil on board, 2012 |
Je Suis un Salaud is the name of a song by Sandwidi Pierre that could have well been a contender for the Eurovision Song Festival if he had been European. It's a chanson in the tradition of the great chansonistas. He could have contended with
Buranovskiye Babushki and Engelbert Humperdinck who are probably around the same age as Mr. Pierre. But Sandwidi Pierre is not from Europe and I'm not even sure if he's still alive today. Sandwidi Pierre hails from Burkino Faso and is nicknamed Le Troubadour de la Savane which is precisely the title of the record Je Suis un Salaud is found on. It was recorded in Nigeria around 1984. After looking up the meaning of the word "salaud" I intuitively likened the song to some hits I heard growing in the Netherlands: Ik Ben Gerrit and Mijn Naam is Haas, songs that should have been contenders in the Eurovision as well. I don't know who won the contest this year but I sure hope it was the
Buranovskiye Babushki group of old ladies that sing traditional Russian songs. Somehow I don't think they've gotten many votes though. You can listen to Je Suis un Salaud via the great excavators of the on-line site Ghost Capital.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Lady Leshurr (hip-hop vs. dancehall)
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| Lady Leshurr 24" x 12", oil on board, 2012 |
An NPR story on Reggae in the UK had a mention of one Lady Leshurr that goes like this: "The Birmingham-born MC got her start as a teenager climbing the ranks of
the U.K. garage scene. Leshurr's parents are from St. Kitts in the
Caribbean—she has a vocal style that veers toward dancehall-style chat"(ed. from Reggae in The UK: A Steady Force.) From there I followed a link to a YouTube video of her track Lego and the intro of it hit me right away as something new and very exciting. (And the rest didn't disappoint me either.) It heard a sound I hadn't heard in hip-hop before and not in dancehall either. Back to NPR: "Producer Res Kwame says the U.K. music scene produces innovative hybrids
because it's less confined by genre than in the U.S.: 'Our producers
are just doing it in our neighborhood and we have the means of getting
it out: pirate stations. Because we're coming from a culture where radio
in the main has not been receptive to black music, we've had to find
our own way and means of doing things. And that's led to a creativity at
the street level.'"
It sounds a lot like the early days of rap and hip-hop. But rap and hip-hop have now become mainstream. And where then to look to find innovation and excitement?... Exactly "at the street level". Leshurr mentions both dancehall diva Lady Saw and hip-hop's Lil Wayne as her influences. The imaginary circle that contains the early Jamiacan DJs (such as King Stitt) and reggae, as well as the history of hip-hop music in the US has been completed...in England.
Lady Leshurr was born as Melesha O’ggaro. She released two mixed tapes (that can be downloaded for free) before recording her first single Lego in 2011 for an actual record label.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
The Moldy Peaches (2)
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| Panda Delilah, daughter of Kimya Dawson oil on board 24" x 12", 2012 |
Panda Delilah was born in 2006, daughter of Kimya Dawson, singer for the Moldy Peaches. All the while when I was trying to paint the Kimya painting (previous post, below), Panda was sticking her tongue out at me so I felt the need to give that goofy little girl her own painting.
My favorite song thus far from the CD The Moldy Peaches is Nothing Came Out while the first Kimya Dawson solo song to enter the Top 100 is Hadlock Padlock from the CD Cute Friend Sweet Angel. The image of Panda is from the same photo that I used to paint her mother from that I found on Celebrity Babies. Even though Panda and Kimya were joined in the photo the two separate paintings of them don't go together very well because of differences in scale and color. But they are both part of the same series: The Top 100 2012. The two are the first of a new 100.
The Moldy Peaches (1)
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| Kimya Dawson 24" x 12" oil on board, 2011 |
Browsing through a friend's CD cabinet my eyes fell on a disc titled The Moldy Peaches. Curiosity made me put it in the CD player, and I was hooked. I heard very happy upbeat lo-fi pop songs even though the lyrics are far from that, but the one-take performances radiated lots of joy. I borrowed the CD and my friend added a Kimya Dawson solo CD called My Cute Friend Sweet Princess to it. Kimya Dawson is one half of the band The Moldy Peaches, Adam Green is the other. I'll make a painting of him soon too. The Moldy Peaches released by Rough Trade Records in 2001 is the first official disc on Which Kimya Dawson can be heard, My Cute Friend Sweet Princess is from 2004. Kimya Malaika Dawson was born in Bedford, NY 1972. Kimya Malaika is Swahili meaning silent angel but she doesn't have any Swahili ancesters. Her brother's name is Akida (chief) Junglefoot Dawson. Kimya Dawson and the Moldy Peaches are best known for their work on the Juno soundtrack. Their music was given the label "Anti-Folk". Last thing I should mention here is that the image I modeled the painting after is from the blog Celebrity Babies, hosted by People.com. Her baby Panda is up next!
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
2012, let's get started.
To start off the Top 100 2012 here are some predictions on what will make the list. these are well informed predictions I should add. Here’s a sampler of the music I bought the past month(s) and listened to so far this year:
- Le Tigre – Who Put the Bomp? is a DVD of live concerts by Le Tigre. I saw Le Tigre perform many years ago in Columbus, OH. The lovely DVD made me also play my Bikini Kill records again. Timeless!
- Andrew Graham/The Alwood Sisters/El Jesus de Magico/Ugly Stick —Music from Columbus, Ohio given to me by their respective performers. The CDs accompanied me on my long drive back from Ohio to Florida.
- The focus and core of my collection has been historical field recordings of indigenous people from around the world. The last new item I found are recordings from 1930s expeditions to the Belgian Congo. On it: some very old recordings of pygmy music, the oldest I have.
- The site Bodega Pop is forwarding the most exciting music at a very high pace. I predict 10%. Outstanding examples so far: Maxima Mejia from Mexico and the Japanese punk/jazz band Midori.
- Talking about Mexico. The local thrift stores seem to have an incessant supply of Mexican records, I’ll buy ‘em all (it seems like it, but not really).
- Exploring a friend’s CD cabinet led me the the music of The Moldy Peaches and the solo work of their female half Kimya Dawson.
I’m really addicted to painting these musicians and I want to do it all the time. So while we’re waiting on the first top 100 paintings to come in, I’ll tell about this little commercial side project I started that hopefully will allow me to paint them all the time: In stead of painting the (mostly obscure) musicians of my own choice, I’m doing a series of musicians based on their popularity, using a style that I’ve learned and devised through the more than a thousand top 100 paintings I’ve made. The celebrity paintings I will offer for sale through a web site and through eBay. First up: Adele. Interested? I’ll forward a link right here as soon as it becomes available.
I just wonder how much of the celebrities will spill over into the Top 100.
I just wonder how much of the celebrities will spill over into the Top 100.
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| Adele 14" x 12" oil on canvas, 2012 |
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