Revel in New York
A look at the city through its people
February 2010
Deconstructing Panda Bear's Person Pitch
Panda Bear is the member of Animal Collective who made the nearly perfect solo record, Person Pitch. I was on his Wikipedia page and noticed all the sampling he did for this album and thought that highlighting some of these bits & pieces would be fun.
We begin with Agnes Montgomery. She's the artist who created the iconic album art (shown above) and the collages shown below. Agnes is based in Philly. Signed limited edition prints of her work can be purchased for $125 here.
Below are the songs sampled on the album:
Comfy In Nautica features a sample of Geino Yamashirogumi's song Tetsuo. Geino Yamashirogumi is a Japanese folk collective that could have over 70 singers and 100 members at any given time. The members consist of every day people that range from businessmen, doctors, students and everyone in between. The song Panda Bear sampled was a commisioned tune from the soundtrack to Akira. The picture below is taken from Julian Cope's website and shows some of the members performing.
Take Pills, the second song on Person Pitch, contains a sample from a Scott Walker's ballad, Always Coming Back to You (shown below) and The Tornados song, Popeye Twist (shown below that).
Track 3 - Bros - Contains the following samples:
Red Roses and a Sky of Blue by The Tornados
I've Found a Love by Cat Stevens from his album, Matthew & Son
Rub A Dub Dub by The Equals (Listen Here)
Track 4: I'm Not contains a sample from Rose, Liz, Printemps, Verdure by Guillaume de Machaut but performed by Gothic Voices
Track 5: Good Girl / Carrots contains the following samples:
Radio Calcutta #2 from the album Radio India: The Eternal Dream of Sound
Enter the Dragon by Lee Scratch Perry
Ananas Symphonie by Kraftwerk
Track 6: Search for Delicious is named after the book of the same namb by children's author Natalie Babbitt
...and that takes care of that!
French Book Covers
French Book Covers is a blog devoted to none other than French Book Covers. Most of them date pre 1950, and the overwhelming majority of them feature girlie / nudie book art. It's run by the same bloke behind Au Carrefour Etrange, which is a good thing. Below are some of my favorites.
Winter Break is Here and You Need to Look Good
Winter break is here. Where you going? Miami, PR, DR, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Kingston mon? Don't matter. Pants be sagging. I saw these numbers on the Reserve Store website and thought they'd look good even at the Atlantic Avenue YMCA, which unfortunately is where I'll be.
Like any good store they also carry vintage books
If these don't suit your fancy, you can always go with Birdwell Beach Britches. The company with the best website on the web and the best britches on the planet.
...Que the fadeout music...
Feed Your Head The Good Stuff
Feed Your Head complied a collection of scanned underground papers dealing with psychedelics and the mainstream papers that covered them. The images below are some of the examples featured on the site. These, along with Feed Your Head's "nutshell" explanations of the papers, feature the usual suspects - Ginsberg, Leary, McKenna, Heard, Watts, Kesey and handful of the lesser known characters.
Destination Out Takes You There
Destination Out is a good station to prepare for orbit. They deal primarily with Free Jazz but also No Wave, Experimental, Films, books, even shoegaze. The experience is a whole lot better if you're wearing a dashiki. Prepare for take off.
Veronica Vasicka @ Le Poisson Rouge
For the last few months Chris Alker has been throwing a post punk, no wave, synth wave party at Le Poisson Rouge. This month he welcomes Veronica Vasicka of the Minimal Wave / Cititrax labels. For those unfamiliar with Veronica, you can watch our profile of her below. For those unfamiliar with Off the Grid, get off your couch and go.
Interview With Artist Jeremy Willis
Jeremy Willis is a New Orleans born, Brooklyn based painter and musician. Prior to moving to New York he spent time in Providence, living in one of those art squat lofts adjacent to Fort Thunder. It was always a treat going up there to watch the loft wrestling matches, play in Atari tournaments and throw bowling balls off the roof at abandoned cars that were set on fire.
RINY: Before we start what song are you listening to at the moment and what do you like about it?
JW: Don't Shout at Me Daddy by Ella Johnson. It's a great weird pop/soul song with a darkness and an innocence that I am currently really digging.
RINY: You’re primarily a painter. What attracts you to this medium and do you work in other mediums?
JW: I think painting is such a simple, primitive way of engaging with the world. It's slowness, history, and detachment from contemporary culture all make it perfect for my purposes of examining the conflict between personal experience and our larger cultural moment. I also play and sing in a rock and/or roll band called The New Feelings.
RINY: Is there a message or meaning behind your work? If so, what is it?
JW: Good art is usually about the same things: mortality, sex, culture. I think I have a lot of these themes in my work. I want my paintings to be sad, funny, conflicted and more than a little idiotically exuberant.
RINY: How do you think your work fits in the larger art scene?
JW: People seem really open minded about all different strategies of art making. I think artists have stopped fretting about what art is and are focusing more on what art does.The field is wide open and there has been a lot of exciting painting lately. Of course there has been a lot of boom market crap as well. I see my stuff in dialogue with a lot of contemporary painters. Steve Dibenedetto, Dana Schutz, Caroll Dunham, Katherine Bernhardt, Tom Sanford.
RINY: Is being a New York based artist a help or hindrance to your work?
JW: Well, both.....the rents are a drag, as is the bullshit and silly hierarchy. But there is so much great art to see that you can never see it all. And things happen here on a scale and with a quality that is always impressive. The best art on planet earth always makes it way here for a viewing at some point.
RINY: I’ve heard rumors that you’re a bit of prankster. I heard that you once sabotaged Columbia University’s MFA inauguration under the alias, The League of Militant Apathy, and that men dressed in masks took over the event by challenging the faculty and students to a dance contest. On another occasion, I heard that this same group was on route to throw a BBQ in front of Julian Schnabel’s house, but were thwarted by cops on the way over because you guys got drunk and played tug of war on the L train. Is this true?
JW: All I will say about this is that those Columbia kids can't dance worth a shit.
RINY: What is missing in the New York art world?
JW: I would like to see mixed nuts available at all NYC galleries. Any finger foods really.....
RINY: Are there NY Galleries you particularly like? What about them do you like?
JW: Lots to choose from. I usually like what they show at David Nolan, Mitchell Innes and Nash, Leo Koenig, Luhring Augustine, Canada, On Stellar Rays is a cool new LES gallery.
RINY: What painting do you wish you painted and why?
JW: The St. Paul paintings by Caravaggio in Rome because they made me cry.
The Conversion of St. Paul
RINY: What are three paintings everyone should be aware of?
JW: Yikes! That's hard. I'm gonna go with personal faves:
1. Painting, Smoking, and Eating by Phillip Guston
2. The Flagelation by Piero della Francesca
3. Agosta the Winged Man and Rasha the Black Dove by Christian Schad.
Painting, Smoking and Eating by Phillip Guston
The Flagellation by Piero della Francesca
Agosta the Winged Man and Rasha the Black Dove by Christian Schad
RINY: What three artists have influenced you and why?
1. R crumb for his frank personal honesty and ability to engage with his own shortcomings.
2. Goya for his ability to make the experience of his own time into something universal, complex, and critical.
3. Paul McCarthy because he seems so willing to plumb the depths.
Crumb Goya McCarthy
RINY: What are three books everyone should read and why?
1. The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass - nazis, eels, a midget that breaks glass with his voice!
2. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner-because it feels like a description of a hallucination but is so brilliantly structured and full of meaning.
3. Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain-because very few books have been so entertaining to me. I love almost all of the bands they talk about and the stories are so insane.The Iggy stories alone make it worth it.
RINY: What are three films everyone should see and why?
1. Pee Wee's Big Adventure-Greatest. Film. Ever. "Is there something you would like to share with the rest of us, Amazing Larry!?"
2. McCabe and Mrs. Miller-So many great Altman movies to choose from. This one is so funny and so sweet and sooo strange. Plus, Julie Christie......!
3. Laura - Amazing film noir with Gene Tiereney. They ask the villian if he would describe himself as a nice man and he says, "let's just say I would hate to see my neighbor's children devoured by wolves." People wrote better dialogue back then.
RINY: What are three records everyone should own and why?
JW: Why does it keep having to be 3? Usually when I am headed to a hypothetical desert island I get 5 or 10 picks....
1. The Best of Blind Willie Mctell. This is the most spooky beautiful haunting music I have ever heard.
2. Modern Lovers-Modern Lovers. No one tells it straight like Jonathan Richman.
3. Anything written and produced by Allen Toussaint. He is probably my favorite American songwriter.
RINY: If they had to recast the movie Twins, who are you Danny Devito or Arnold Scwartzenegger?
JW: I think I will always be a Devito trying to be a Schwarzenneger.
RINY: What are some images that inspire you?
JW: Comic books, porn, art history, Polish hip hop flyers, movie posters, but more specifically these:
