Brrrrrrrrrrr......

Hey folks, nice to be bloggin' again, it's like my two weeks is up, time to make a new mark on the ol' internets.
Just wanted to touch base, and make a few observations.
1. It's the 2nd day of November, and it's the first snow of the year! I am woefully under-dressed for today, time to get the coat out, for those of you that live in California, a coat is thick jacket, with long sleeves, sometimes with a cap or hat attached.
2. Viennale film festival: Not much interesting this year, a bit of a disappointment. We managed to see a film on an Italian mafia-murder case, the interesting documentary "My Country My Country" and John Turturro's "Romance and Cigarettes" which is really a Coen Brothers movie in disguise.
I was kind of disappointed that Jesus Camp, wasn't playing, but maybe next year?
We wanted to see The Pervert's Guide to Cinema which seems like a great documentary featuring Slovoj Zizek (sorry, I dropped the accents) and his ideas and ramblings about the movies. Vienna being the city that it is (I can't help but think that in most towns, a movie screening about a Slovenian philosopher's film theories would be half full, at best) the movie was hopelessly sold out, and we didn't have half a chance of getting in. Lots of art school kids in attendance, looking arty.
3. Raymond Pettibon at the Kunsthalle in Vienna, We all know and love the work of Raymond Pettibon, you know the guy who did the Black Flag art? Yeah well now he's a pretty major and respected artist, and some of his drawings are on display in Vienna. I attended the opening, and it was funny to hear the museum director, go on and on about Pettibon, and then Pettibon, went up and struggled to utter and mumble a few words, and say thanks. I talked him into drawing Gumby and Pokey in my sketchbook, so now I have my own Pettibon drawing!
A few days later Greil Marcus gave a lecture about art and politics, and talked about: Riot Girl, Philip Roth, Bikini Kill, Sinclair Lewis, Sleater Kinney, T.V. on the Radio, and Green Day. When asked about Raymond Petibon, he said something to the extent of "Eh, not a fan."
4. Erwin Wurm at the MUMOK. Erwin Wurm, is pretty bitchen, I like the guy's work, I'll forgive him for the Red Hot Chili Pepper's, because he didn't make it, they were just "inspired" by him. Good Stuff, some of the best artwork I've seen in a while, like Charles Ray, with a sense of humor.
5. I caught them all. I caught/evolved every Pokemon in Pokemon Pinball advanced, I am a nerd.

Peasant In The Big Shitty

Hi folks, not much to say, it's been a month, and we've been busy. Holeeeeeeee moleeey, have we been busy. I hope you enjoy the re-design (O.K. I just switched blogger templates!) I just saw one too many blogs with the old format I was using, and decided to make a switch.
We had a quick visit to the island of Ischia, and the city of Naples (Neapolis, the Latin name, which I like more.)
Naples, whoa! A city going on all burners, 25 hours a day, it was amazing to see scooters speeding downhill in the wrong direction, scooters cutting through the pedestrian zones, seeing live octopus being sold on the street, laptops and cell phones being sold on the street, and seeing 2000 year old pornography at the museum. An amazing chaotic city; Rome, London, L.A. Vienna, and N.Y., don't have a thing on Naples. Now, every city I have ever visited before seems like a tranquil hamlet. After a 100 meter walk from the train station to the bus station, I found that someone had opened my backpack's outside pocket, and I guess they didn't think my ink pens and pencil sharpener were worth stealing. (Good thing they didn't find my passport and ipod shuffle!) I guess I had gotten off with a slight warning. And yeah Mt. Vesuvius is always looming overhead, a city at the foot of an active volcano.

What a city, we only had two days, and I had a cold, but I eagerly want to return to Neapolis!

OK so now we're back laying low, and hiding out from the man.
Top Ten:
1. Alan Moore's Top Ten comic, I like it even more because the city is called Neopolis, and seems to be a cross between Naples and (Superman's) Metropolis.
2. The Stranglers' "The Raven" This might be their best record, great new wave, but it's really pretty punk. Great keyboards and cool guitar, fat bass, fucked up lyrics and everything you would expect from the dirty old men of punk.
3. Roy Loney solo records, I downloaded some great out of print stuff from a great website called Powerpop Lovers (too lazy to link) and I discovered the Flaming Groovies singer's solo records have some great songs.
4. The Flys, more good stuff from Powerpop lovers.
5. Lee Perry: Scratch The Upsetters Again, another great find from the Vienna Library.
6. Japanther! Live! More NYC/Rhode Island drum and bass noise rock, but with some good harmonies and great songs.
7. Raymond Pettibon doodling and autographing in my sketchbook!!! And the overwhelming Pettibon exhibition at the Vienna Kunsthalle.
8. Being able to read Roberto Calasso's "Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony." A really interesting approach to Greek mythology, it seems more rewarding than Edith Hamilton.
9. Slowly slogging through Brian Greene's " Fabric of the Cosmos" he gives the lowdown on space and time, it turns out OUR experience of reality isn't really reality.
10. EMPIRE "Expensive Sound" The guitarist from Generation X, did this little ol' punk band in 1981, turns out this very obscure record would be a huge influence on American underground music. Those DC hardcore kids ate it up and this record was a big influence on Embrace/Fugazi/Gray Matter/Soulside (And who knows who else?) . AND it turns out it was a favorite of a very young teenage guitarist in San Diego, back when he was starting his band Pitchfork. This record is finally available on CD with a bunch of x-tra nasty bonus cuts. I'm planning to do a full review of this when ever I get the time. Thanks to J. for turning me on to this.
Later Folks.

Helvetica: The Movie

I never thought anybody would make a movie about a font!
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Helvetica, a documentary is being released.
The movie promises to examine the world of typography, graphic design and global visual culture.
The Helvetica Movie is being directed by the Producer of the Moog Documentary and the Wilco Docementary, and will feature a boatload of interviews with people who are superstars in the graphic design-world. (Stefan Sagmeister, Tobias Frere-Jones, Jonathan Hoefler and Erik Speikermann, to name a few.)

Helvetica (and its bastard cousin Arial) are like the cosmic microwave background radiation of the typographic universe, it's so ubiquitous, you hardly notice it. It's nice to see someone pointing it out!
Helvetica: The Movie!

Camping Out On Cookie Mountain

(File under: judging a book by its cover.)
I Recently picked up TV on the Radio's new record, "Return to Cookie Mountain." It's a pretty good record too, I like it.
But this has nothing to do with the music; looking at the CD cover, and the inside booklet, and the especially atrocious looking back-cover (not pictured here), I thought the record looked like something from 1992. Then I realized that is was released on 4AD, and looked again at the credits, and discovered that yes, indeed, the graphics were done by the once-great Vaughan Oliver.
Vaughan Oliver did some great work for 4AD back in the day, I even have a collection of his work, (This Rimy River: Vaughn Oliver and Graphic Works 1988-94.) But looking at the TVOTR cd I can't help but notice how stuck in time his work looks nowadays. Even David Carson has moved on and has let his graphic style evolve, but Oliver's work appears to be caught in some kind of time-warp-loop.

We will crush you!!!

Y'know, this has been bugging me for a while now, and I saw this DVD in the post office and finally thought to say my two cents.
Meet Disney's newest addition to Hundred Acre Wood, Heffalump.
Now, Heffalump (or Lumpy as he's called in the movie) is cute and all, but he looks suspiciously similar to the mascot of the GOP.
Is Disney trying to push a conservative agenda on our children? He's purple too, are they trying to say let's all get along (red and blue states) under benevolent Republican hegemony? Look how ONE Heffalump outweighs nearly all the other residents of Pooh's forest! No, our society is not all equal! The needs of the many (Pooh's multi-cultural pals) do not outweigh the needs of the few! (Thanks, Spock!)
I think this poster speaks volumes.

And if you think this sounds ridiculous, just think about Jerry Falwell's attack on another purple character.

(Although, I like this alternative poster quite a bit, and it works well in German.)

(Still) Rockin' in the Free World

A new-first for me, but something I've always wanted to do: random record reviews.
I just wanted to cover stuff that I have and like, stuff that's bad (and overhyped), stuff I just bought, some records and bands that I just stumble across, and the occasional judging a book (or in this case a CD) by it's cover.
I've had this idea for a long time, but I don't write for a magazine, and let's face it, magazines only review records to keep up with PR campaigns. It's rare to see a review of some old record that one should check out (the only time you see that is when a record is re-issued, which is, again, a part of someone's publicity campaign!)
So, from time to time, I will be posting some reviews of stuff I simply dig.

So, here goes...

While I have been collecting records for a good portion of my life (20 years!) I have a pretty decent sized collection, and I think I know a fair amount about different bands and artists, there are a some very significant gaps in my musical knowledge. I don't think I've ever really listened to Janis Joplin, Neurosis, Megadeth, Tommy Keane, Styx, or Pavement. I don't listen much to Led Zeppelin, Velvet Underground, Dinosaur Jr. or the Stones either. Sue me.
One particular artist that I have always avoided is Neil Young. Why? I don't know why exactly, probably a vague hippy association, and then a vague grunge association, O.K., that's exactly why.
Recently, a few things have made me re-think some aspects of Mr. Neil Young, particularly, his great 1975 album, ZUMA.
1. After meeting a number of Canadians, and of all the famous-Canadians-that-we-are-proud-that-they-aren't-American, Neil Young seems to be at the top of the list, much higher than Pamela Anderson, William Shatner or Jim Carrey.
2. Thinking about that video, where he made fun of Michael Jackson's hair catching fire, how punk is that?
3. Seeing him recently on Stephen Colbert, and his segment was funny as hell.

So, after seeing Neil Young on Colbert, I downloaded a couple of tunes, and liked what I heard. Then as luck would have it, when I went to the library and they had about 4 Neil Young CD's and ZUMA was one of them. Sure the folk-rock-country sounds of Harvest are nice, but it's all about ZUMA, you rocker, you.

ZUMA is a record Neil Young recorded with Crazy Horse in 1975, when I was only 3 years old, (for those of you that don't know, a year after I got the big scar on my face). And while it's not Neil Young's most famous record, it certainly isn't obscure, but it is certainly different than what was happening at the time. It seems as if Neil Young and Crazy Horse wanted to record the nastiest, dirtiest, loudest, and swampiest (is that even a word?) blues record ever recorded.
I knew that Slint covered "Cortez the Killer" but I didn't expect that ZUMA was such an influence on so much music I like. It's like the first time I heard Mission of Burma or the Stooges, and realized, "OH, that's where that sound comes from!"
To name just a few bands I like that really seem to have been influenced by this record are: Slint, Drive Like Jehu(!), (especially) Silkworm, Sonic Youth and Guided By Voices. Acoustic Folk, Bright jangly guitar pop and weird dark discordant blues are the colors of this album, but the thing that stands out is Neil Young's jangly, loose (almost sloppy) guitar playing. Some songs are drenched in feedback, crunching overdriven guitars, and yet contain a weird sparseness and tension. Think of the quiet moments in a song by Slint and you're getting the idea. And Neil Young's frequent backing band, Crazy Horse's sparse and restrained playing really give the record this feeling. Zuma, has the feeling of being one long song with different parts and moods. This CD is like discovering the primordial DNA of a certain breed of indie/grunge/punk rock (I'm sure it was an influence on a number of bands I don't like) complete with the crappy cover drawing that looks like it was done by your eight year old cousin.

The Humid Press Of Days

Hi folks, those of you who still check this space, man, it's been a long time. Holy crap! The last entry was in February, and I was still in California!!! Yikes! Man, that means I haven't had much time to waste on this biographical-log.
Well, a lot has happened.
The first week after I returned to Vienna, we moved into a new apartment, which is actually down the street from the old one. It's nice, and we're pretty happy with the place.
Oh and we moved the MOTMOT shop, down the street from where it used to be, and that has been quite a handful of work. It's fun and actually quite rewarding to run your own shop. So far we haven't lost any $$$. So, hopefully, it keeps doing better. We are working on the website which will be up and running one of these days, with online ordering and all that fancy stuff. Any day now...
And we don't have an internet connection at home, so I can only update this at the shop!

Yeah, so what's new anyway? Lots of time spent working and fixing up the apartment, and not a lot of time for anything else.
My mind is drawing a blank when it comes to what I've been up to. Mostly reading and coming up with new artwork, which isn't really all that exciting to write about. Lots of nights spent drawing and listening to the radio; the life of a graphic designer/illustrator/shopkeeper/screenprinter/commercial artist, it's pretty boring. No crack cocaine hooker parties for me.

Which reminds me that I do have a few things being published this year: I should have a few photos and a few sentences published in the upcoming Jabberjaw book, whenever that gets published. O.K. it's not a lot of stuff, it's a few photos of bands (Lungfish and Trenchmouth) and a paragraph about my overall impression of what made the Jabberjaw so great.
Jabberjaw on Myspace
AND I have a few collages appearing in ROSEBUD magazine. Rosebud is an annual publication which features a different theme for every issue, the upcoming issue will be titled "Ideal." The collages are a series which I made using a color copier. This was a more process-oriented series than I had done before, I would run the collages through the copier multiple times, until I would come up with something interesting. Thematically, the artwork deals with: religious fundamentalism, intelligent design, the apocalypse, evolution, anthropomorphism and commercial art. Somehow these topics seemed to match up with the idea behind the "Ideal" issue. I can't wait until this comes out!
Issue 6 of Rosebud should be out by the end of the year.
Rosebud magazine

I'm also adding a few things to my sidebar, y'know links to friends and good stuff, like 2nd Cannons and Killed By Death Records!

Top Ten for Summer 2006
1. The Marked Men, who says punk's dead. These guys make some great punk music. Can't wait to see them when they play in Europe this fall! Yeah so what If I mentioned them earlier, they still rule!!!
2. Almost everything written by Grant Morrison! WE3 and Seaguy rule, and even his All Star Superman comic is great (yeah, that's right SUPERMAN! Not to mention his run on Animal Man, and the Filth, and Seven Soldiers!)
3. We Jam Econo. I saw this at the local rock-bar, but I ordered the DVD and I think I like it even more, there are some great deleted scenes, and music videos. The Bonus DVD has 3 whole Minutemen shows! A great band, and D. Boon certainly was taken from us way too early.
4. Kenny Burrell, he just rules, to any Kenny Burrel detractors I say, listen to Midnight Blue or Blue Bash with Jimmy Smith!
Technical virtuosity and great feeling, without being too overbearing.
5. Stephen Colbert rules! That speech at the White House Press Corps dinner, ouch! His show ain't bad either!
6. Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku, A good introduction to the current state of theoretical physics. Stranger than Sci-fi!
7. Swami Sound System streaming online! John Reis' radio show is as great as you would expect!
8. Podcasting, just in general, I'm glad people are getting with it, and making a lot of great shows available. For me it's X-tra great, I can get caught up on my news (and other stuff.)
9. The Fact that the Channels CD comes out this month, I'm sure it's gonna be great. The Licensee is such a great song, and I'm kind of glad to see that it's on Dischord. Waiting for the Next End of the World!
10. The Jam, the Specials, always great summertime music! And lots of great stuff I downloaded from Killed By Death records, that guy is posting some great obscure punk and power-pop. The Toys and Slime ep's are highly recommended!

See ya next time, folks, all 3 of you!

Graphic Masterpieces

I'm in the last week of my Southern California vacation, and I'm here, doing this, while I should be out surfin' or going to Disneyland or something.
I have found two great examples of bad album cover art, which, nowadays I find way more interesting than GOOD album cover art. Although, some of these are so bad, they go past good and back to bad.
I wonder how some of these ever get printed; either they had NO budget for artwork, or they were fried-stoned-baked out of their minds!

Museum of Bad Album Covers

Pitchfork Media's: The Worst Record Covers of All Time

Enjoy this graphic treasure trove! Leave a comment and let me know which are your "favorites."

The Big Heist

Hi everyone! As most of my friends in the USA probably know I am back in the USA for a few weeks to get caught up with friends and enjoy the lovely California winter.
But the update is an incredible story that happened recently in Vienna.

On May 11, 2003, the Saliera was stolen from the Art History museum in Vienna. Cellini's Saliera is a very famous piece of sculpture, if anyone reading this took Renaissance art history in college, you should remember this particular sculpture. It has been described as the "Mona Lisa" of sculpture, and with the exception of Michelangelo's David, is possibly the most famous piece of sculpture in the world. This piece was one of the highlights at the Vienna Art Historical Museum. Estimated to be worth $60,000,000 (THAT'S RIGHT! Sixty Million Dollars!) it was one of the most valuable art objects ever stolen!
After it was stolen there were calls to fire the director of the museum, and it was an embarrassing and tragic loss.

Then, just two days ago, on January 21st, after nearly three years, the Saliera was finally recovered. The recovery process was a long and difficult investigation involving some high-tech surveillance and tracing phone records. When the police finally apprehended the suspect, he confessed and told the police where he had hidden the sculpture, and when it was finally returned, the sculpture hadn't been damaged.

Now, what's so strange about the whole story is that the man the police captured, works across the street from our shop/office. He even came into our shop, and Anna saw him just a few days ago before he was arrested. And, of course, in true-criminal fashion, the art-thief owns and operates a burglar alarm company (he's got a cute window display featuring Disney's Beagle Boys memorabilia, which now seems just a bit ominous). We called him many times to try to get an estimate for an alarm system for our shop, but he never really returned our calls. In retrospect, I'm glad he didn't.