Pomeranczowa Alternatywa (Orange Alternative): Polish Activist/Interventionists of the 1980s

A new book has just been published in English on the extremely significant Polish activist group the 
"Orange Alternative" (Pomeranczowa Alternatywa) who created a large number of street performances and interventions, particularly throughout the late 1980s in the city of Wroclaw. LIves of the Orangemen by Major Waldemar Fydrych (and with a brief introduction by the Yes Men) is available as a free PDF from Minor Composition press' website, and a hard copy can be ordered for the bargain price of 10 GBP. Crucial historical info for the contemporary activist or cultural historian. 

Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art

I just wanted to note the really wonderful amount of video, sound, and image materials available on the website for the exhibition Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art which recently finished its run in NYC at the Studio Museum in Harlem. As the curatorial/press information for the show states: "Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art is the first exhibition to survey over fifty years of performance art by visual artists of African descent from the United States and the Caribbean. Black performance has generally been associated with music, theater, dance, and popular culture. While the artists in Radical Presence draw on these disciplines, here their work is considered in relation to the visual arts. The show begins with examples dating from Fluxus—a loose international network of artists from the 1960s and ’70s—and Conceptual art of the same period, and continues up to the present day. Featuring live performances as well as objects, Radical Presence includes more than one hundred works by thirty-seven artists." The site features videos, interviews, and documentation of works by artists including: Papo Colo, Coco Fusco, Theaster Gates, David Hammons, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Dave McKenzie, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O'Grady, Benjamin Patterson, Adrian Piper, Pope.L, Dread Scott, Carrie Mae Weems, and many others.

Angel Olsen's "Burn Your Fire For No Witness"

The American singer-songwriter Angel Olsen's most recent CD Burn Your Fire For No Witness is in repeat mode on my desktop at the moment. Although the amount of pain, misery, woe and longing present (everything is tragic/it all just falls apart) in Olsen's sometimes ephemeral, sometimes rousing songs has been frequently commented upon, the sureness of her delivery is altogether affirming and joyful. Currently picking up loads of positive press from the likes of SPIN and the NYTimes, hope the hype doesn't submerge her evident talents. Here are two links to radio performances on KEXP Seattle (with full band) and NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts (solo). 

David Bowie and the Story of Ziggy Stardust

The addictively watchable BBC four documentary David Bowie and the Story of Ziggy Stardust (narrated by Jarvis Cocker) depicts the long road leading up to Bowie’s big breakthrough persona, by way of an almost startling range of eclectic influences: dance, mime, folk, music hall, Anthony Newley, mod, children’s music, theatre (both avant-garde and not-so), and of course, early rock and roll, fashion, androgyny, gay culture, Iggy Pop and the Velvet Underground. As “Spiders from Mars” drummer Mick “Woody” Woodmansy comments: “I think he was trying on what can I do and what do people want, going through the trial and error period, and there was a lot of error!”

Assorted Fluxus video links

Here are some links to some pretty interesting Fluxus material floating around on YouTube, including Dick Higgins describing the origins of Fluxus and a (re-)performance of his piece "Danger Music # 17" by Australian scholar Geoffrey Gartner. There's some great footage of the early (1962) German Fluxus festivals here and experimental filmmaker Jonas Mekas speaks of his friends Andy Warhol and George Maciunas here. Alison Knowles was interviewed on the occasion of MoMA's Fluxus Editions exhibition, and performance artist William Pope.L devised his own particular response. Nam June Paik speaks about his motivations to make video art in a vintage documentary, and another documentary focuses on his longtime collaborator and partner "the topless cellist" Charlotte Moorman.

Dead Kennedys in the Studio 1981

Pretty damned wonderful videotape of 1981 sessions for the Dead Kennedys' EP In God We Trust Inc. which my friends and I passed back and forth so much it was worn out and scratched to bits. The band which later had an acrimonious split was arguably in peak form at that time, energetic, witty, and loud. And how could they go wrong with song titles like "Religious Vomit" and "Nazi Punks Fuck Off"?!

Kraftwerk in 3-D in Chicago!

The Chicago Tribune has posted some nice photos from Kraftwerk's recent appearance at the Riviera Theatre which can be viewed here.

New Garage Explosion!!: In Love With These Times

Here's a documentary on the garage rock revivalists of the past several years featuring mostly US bands including the late Jay Reatard, Thee Oh Sees, Davila 666, The Black Lips, and Ty Segall. But also (rightfully) featuring the influence of New Zealand's own The Clean! In Jay Reatard's words (interviewed in the film) garage is "usually three minutes or less, as few words as possible, to convey as much emotion as you can with as little as possible." And here's a link to Pitchfork's Shake Appeal column dedicated to "garage and garage-adjacent releases." For the real old school stuff you can check out a YouTube playlist drawing from the tracks on Lenny Kaye's seminal Nuggets compilation LP of sixties garage punk and psychedelia. 

Johnny Cash's "Lost" Album: Out Among the Stars

It's normally time to worry when a record company decides to put out "lost" product by deceased musicians, even (especially?) by legendary figures such as Johnny Cash. Taking this apprehension in mind, Cash's recently released Out Among the Stars is a welcome rather than disappointing event. The album is comprised of recordings made in Nashville in the early 1980s but only recently recovered. At that time Cash, despite his iconic status was treated as a rather money-losing proposition, and was even dropped by his record label--the same one that is now releasing this record, ironic no? At any rate, the songs are often overproduced, as is typical of so-much eighties music, whether recorded in Nashville or elsewhere, but there is a residual warmth to Cash's voice and a light, engaging humour that is contagious. While Cash's later Rick Rubin-era recordings benefit from their stripped down empathic approach, even some of the best material is difficult to listen to as Cash was so clearly in decline, ill and not long for this world. Notwithstanding the self-inflicted damage to his voice that Cash incurred due to his wild living, the songs on Out Among the Stars find his voice steady and reassuring even as it often relates narratives of down and out souls and hard times. You can read Cash's son John Carter Cash's track-by-track run down of the album here. And watch a film featuring covers of some of the songs by Brandon Flowers, Father John Misty, and Local Natives. And below you can listen to Out Among the Stars.

Extended run of Victoria Singh's "Waiting Room"

Artist Victoria Singh's WAITING ROOM project which I recently posted on and was just written up in the Dominion Post has now been extended until MARCH 30th—however for the week starting Monday March 24 it has different hours as on TUESDAY and FRIDAY it's open from 430 to 8 PM only. More chances to wait!