So, here I am in front of my computer, at 2:45 am.
O.K. I was out earlier, but still...
I had a late night bike cruise through the city. Vienna on a summer night is hard to describe, it's like people are out with a vengeance, I'm sure they're still out there. After being cooped up all winter, and most of spring, people know there are only three months to enjoy the outdoors. That's why, on Sundays, they serve breakfast until 3:00 pm.
The MQ (Museum Quarter) is this immense public hangout. It's a huge courtyard, with these big brightly colored benches. And people go there to see the museums, resaurants, and just hang out. So on my way home I go through MQ, and there are, like, at least a thousand people, I'm not exaggerating. I'm probably underestimating. It's more crowded then I have ever seen it in the day.
I see two things of interest.
A group of people dancing to no music!
An party/exhibition of retooled videogame cabinets.
The people dancing were taking part in a headphone party, where everyone is wearing cordless headphones, and listening to the same music. It's just a bizarre sight, to see people dancing with no music. As I was leaving I watched a group of people enter the "dance zone." As soon as they saw what was going on, they all started laughing.
Next was a party/exhibition/arcade. The art-tech-party-geeks put together a pretty interesting display here. They presented, arcade style, a bunch of custom computer games. But they're custom programs. Like, their own games, that do something, packaged in old-school arcade game cabinets. Sorry, the text for the website is all in German. But you get the idea, welcome to my world.
http://www.insertcoin.biz
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Go Padres! (San Diego punk rock, and the National City Sluggers)
O.K. so like any new blogger I am bursting with blog energy, and am posting like a madman. But I promise it will tail off, one of these days, huh, wait, that's not a good thing. I would like to post maybe once or twice a week, it's like band practice, too little and your band will suck, too much and your girlfriend will leave you!
I was clicking around the Swami Records board and I found a link to this live concert featuring the Hot Snakes, live at the Paradiso, in Amsterdam. The same Paradiso, in Amsterdam, that the live Joy Division record was recorded.
The Hot Snakes concert sounds pretty damn good, way above par, sounds like a soundboard recording, this would be a helluva bootleg, rock out.
Live SSSSSSnakes
Also coming from San Diego, is icon of conceptual art, John Baldessari. I always thought he would make a good Santa Claus, no really, I think someone needs to make an art piece about him, John Baldessari as Santa Claus.
Anyway, John Baldessari has a big exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MUMOK) here, in Vienna. It's a major retrospective, of one of the pillars of contemporary art. The exhibition is roughly divided into three sections: Paintings and photos, conceptual and documented work, and film based work.
One treat featured in this exhibition is, some of his early paintings, that survived his cremation project, are on display. Some of the artwork is really showing signs of age, and maybe need to be re-stored or even re-made. Interestingly enough, in this particular exhibition space, his paintings display really well, while some of his more famous photo based works, are looking pretty beat up, and seem to work better in reproduction (they're photos after all.)
In Typical Viennese fashion, the exhibition is presented with complete earnestness and seriousness. Maybe it's just the art world that takes itself too seriously, but there is a certain silliness to Baldessari's work, and with the work serenely displayed on pristine walls, the humor gets sucked out of the room. But still it's great to see his work presented together in this manner. And on top of that the Museum is free this month, so lots of people are flooding the museum, checking out his work.
MUMOK Wien John Baldessari
I was clicking around the Swami Records board and I found a link to this live concert featuring the Hot Snakes, live at the Paradiso, in Amsterdam. The same Paradiso, in Amsterdam, that the live Joy Division record was recorded.
The Hot Snakes concert sounds pretty damn good, way above par, sounds like a soundboard recording, this would be a helluva bootleg, rock out.
Live SSSSSSnakes
Also coming from San Diego, is icon of conceptual art, John Baldessari. I always thought he would make a good Santa Claus, no really, I think someone needs to make an art piece about him, John Baldessari as Santa Claus.
Anyway, John Baldessari has a big exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MUMOK) here, in Vienna. It's a major retrospective, of one of the pillars of contemporary art. The exhibition is roughly divided into three sections: Paintings and photos, conceptual and documented work, and film based work.
One treat featured in this exhibition is, some of his early paintings, that survived his cremation project, are on display. Some of the artwork is really showing signs of age, and maybe need to be re-stored or even re-made. Interestingly enough, in this particular exhibition space, his paintings display really well, while some of his more famous photo based works, are looking pretty beat up, and seem to work better in reproduction (they're photos after all.)
In Typical Viennese fashion, the exhibition is presented with complete earnestness and seriousness. Maybe it's just the art world that takes itself too seriously, but there is a certain silliness to Baldessari's work, and with the work serenely displayed on pristine walls, the humor gets sucked out of the room. But still it's great to see his work presented together in this manner. And on top of that the Museum is free this month, so lots of people are flooding the museum, checking out his work.
MUMOK Wien John Baldessari
typography redux
I am re-posting this post from myspace blog thingy.
It's, like, what I aim to do with this blog-thing.
Anyway last week I found myself attending a typography seminar with the great English type designer, Jeremy Tankard. If you aren't familiar with him check him out at, www.typography.net
He does some really great stuff, he seems to be on the leading edge of British typography, he has a good sense of history, but isn't afraid to break with old traditions.
The seminar was crazy because half of the class were students, a quarter of the class of the class was Anna and I, and the last quarter were really serious type designers, who made some really great work. One guy flew from London, to Vienna to attend the seminar. I felt like a clown, or at least a philistine, with my Hot Snakes font, and my silly animal icon font, but it was really cool, nontheless. So I happened to stumple upon a really great thing.
The big discovery was the FONTLAB program, which, besides being much easier than Fontographer, is a great drawing program. And I am considering using it to do illustrations, instead of Adobe Illustrator. It's really that good.
Then, later that night, we saw the amazing swiss designer, Urs Lehni, who has done some amazing stuff. The funny thing is that Anna and I thought he was the mastermind behind "OUR MAGAZINE" but he was also the designer who made the stuff for the ShauspielHaus in Zurich. (The Shauspielhaus in Zurich, had made some really cool catalogs and programs, that we had long admired. Very cool formats, done on a low budget.)
"Our Magazine" is a great topical magazine that examines some pretty banal topics, and gives them new light. The first issue was about Dogs, the second was Landscapes. But they manage to find some pretty offbeat stuff, and make you reexamine the subject. And it's done in an interesting way, that makes it much more than a piece of eye-candy. Afterwards, I talked to Urs about Wesley Willis, who was well known in indie rock circles, but relatively unknown here in Europe. Wesley Willis' brilliant Chicago landscapes are one of the features in the latest issue of "Our Magazine." check it out:
http://www.our-magazine.ch/
It's, like, what I aim to do with this blog-thing.
Anyway last week I found myself attending a typography seminar with the great English type designer, Jeremy Tankard. If you aren't familiar with him check him out at, www.typography.net
He does some really great stuff, he seems to be on the leading edge of British typography, he has a good sense of history, but isn't afraid to break with old traditions.
The seminar was crazy because half of the class were students, a quarter of the class of the class was Anna and I, and the last quarter were really serious type designers, who made some really great work. One guy flew from London, to Vienna to attend the seminar. I felt like a clown, or at least a philistine, with my Hot Snakes font, and my silly animal icon font, but it was really cool, nontheless. So I happened to stumple upon a really great thing.
The big discovery was the FONTLAB program, which, besides being much easier than Fontographer, is a great drawing program. And I am considering using it to do illustrations, instead of Adobe Illustrator. It's really that good.
Then, later that night, we saw the amazing swiss designer, Urs Lehni, who has done some amazing stuff. The funny thing is that Anna and I thought he was the mastermind behind "OUR MAGAZINE" but he was also the designer who made the stuff for the ShauspielHaus in Zurich. (The Shauspielhaus in Zurich, had made some really cool catalogs and programs, that we had long admired. Very cool formats, done on a low budget.)
"Our Magazine" is a great topical magazine that examines some pretty banal topics, and gives them new light. The first issue was about Dogs, the second was Landscapes. But they manage to find some pretty offbeat stuff, and make you reexamine the subject. And it's done in an interesting way, that makes it much more than a piece of eye-candy. Afterwards, I talked to Urs about Wesley Willis, who was well known in indie rock circles, but relatively unknown here in Europe. Wesley Willis' brilliant Chicago landscapes are one of the features in the latest issue of "Our Magazine." check it out:
http://www.our-magazine.ch/
The Numero Group
So, all new music sucks huh?
The folks at the Numero group seem to have a great appreciation for re-releasing some of the best music no one has ever heard. A friend brought me the "Yellow Pills: prefill" comp and it's pretty close to what an ideal compilation should be. I mean I have NEVER heard of any of these bands. It's a real treasure.
What's great about it is that the label seems to put a lot of time and care into their whole package, the Music is great, and the accompanying package is so well done and well made. The liner notes seem to go on and on, which I can't get enough of. I mean in this day and age the CD has become something strange, it's like a capsule, that contains music, then once emptied, is rarely heard from again. Maybe if more labels would try a little harder, people would still go out and buy music. But, I digress.
It's good to see that there are people out there willing to pay close attention to detail. It's nice to see deserving bands, being treated like royalty, or at least being packaged like royalty.
Their other releases include an obscure french band called ANTENA, who sound like Stereolab, but this record was originally released when the members of Stereolab were still in high school. And other releases are Eccentric Soul, featuring songs from different obscure soul labels (Capsoul and Bandit, yeah that's right, huh? Never heard of them either.) Their newest is a reissue of an impossibly obscure rockabilly record.
Dig it.
www.numerogroup.com
The folks at the Numero group seem to have a great appreciation for re-releasing some of the best music no one has ever heard. A friend brought me the "Yellow Pills: prefill" comp and it's pretty close to what an ideal compilation should be. I mean I have NEVER heard of any of these bands. It's a real treasure.
What's great about it is that the label seems to put a lot of time and care into their whole package, the Music is great, and the accompanying package is so well done and well made. The liner notes seem to go on and on, which I can't get enough of. I mean in this day and age the CD has become something strange, it's like a capsule, that contains music, then once emptied, is rarely heard from again. Maybe if more labels would try a little harder, people would still go out and buy music. But, I digress.
It's good to see that there are people out there willing to pay close attention to detail. It's nice to see deserving bands, being treated like royalty, or at least being packaged like royalty.
Their other releases include an obscure french band called ANTENA, who sound like Stereolab, but this record was originally released when the members of Stereolab were still in high school. And other releases are Eccentric Soul, featuring songs from different obscure soul labels (Capsoul and Bandit, yeah that's right, huh? Never heard of them either.) Their newest is a reissue of an impossibly obscure rockabilly record.
Dig it.
www.numerogroup.com
a few things
Yeah, well, see, I guess, I got sick of bloggin' on myspace, after seeing that OASIS had a profile there. How indie can it be? It's good to keep tabs on everybody back home, and I've been re-acquainted with a few people I had lost track of, but besides that, I dunno, it's like hanging out at the mall. Plus that Tom guy bugs, big time.
I though I should get situated properly, ala promocopy
I have been kicking around the idea of making a blog, that focuses on graphic arts, but fine arts, folk art, music, radio, comic books, culture in general, anything is fair game. I would like to get some participation, from you fine folks out there. I would really like this to serve as a forum, and a place for anyone concerned to find out about new things.
Please, be patient as I figure out how the hell to work this thing, post links and pictures, etc...
I though I should get situated properly, ala promocopy
I have been kicking around the idea of making a blog, that focuses on graphic arts, but fine arts, folk art, music, radio, comic books, culture in general, anything is fair game. I would like to get some participation, from you fine folks out there. I would really like this to serve as a forum, and a place for anyone concerned to find out about new things.
Please, be patient as I figure out how the hell to work this thing, post links and pictures, etc...
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