Listening to Paint Dry is a podcast for environments that are looking for something to listen to that won’t get in the way of your thinking. The music you will hear on LTPD is as ignorable as it is interesting, and as interesting as it is ignorable.
Listening to Paint Dry is a music podcast by Matthew Langley.
Leave a CommentI stumbled over these at the amazing blog “Dangerous Minds” and thought it might have some interest to anyone who might be looking. Normally I would shy away from someone who just took a bunch of photos – these are a bit different seeing as they are by Chris Stein (of Blondie, Adolph’s Dog and TV Party fame – I know I probably could have stopped at Blondie…). I think the source in this case is worth mentioning seeing as he was there for pretty much the entire run of Hilly’s bar.
Eventually these will interest anthropologists as they find layers and layers of counter-cultural graffiti and stickers creating a historical layer of exactly what happened at 315 Bowery
Visit Chris Stein’s blog at rednight.net
Speaker
“the Bathroom”
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One of the things I really appreciate in the work of Robert Fripp is the structure that oversee’s his work while at the same time there are clearly areas that allow for the occasional “happy accident” or just enough looseness to allow for new things to be found and explored inside the work. I recently stumbled over this document that was included in the album of Frippertronics called “Let the Power Fall” I’ve included it here – as I find it pretty interesting.
A personal story: I worked at Crown Books in the early – through mid eighties in the DC suburbs and at one of the locations I worked at we would drink Schweppes ginger ale – which in an afternoon of store hijinks, we retitled “schweppetronics”. At the time, we considered ourselves to be pretty clever…
I
1. One can work within any structure.
2. One can work within any structure, some structures are more efficient than others.
3. There is no structure which is universally appropriate.
4. Commitment to an aim within inappropriate structure will give rise to the creation of an appropriate structure.
5. Apathy, i.e. passive commitment, within an appropriate structure will effect its collapse.
6. Dogmatic attachment to the supposed merits of a particular structure hinders the search for an appropriate structure.
7. There will be difficulty defining the appropriate structure because it will be always mobile, i.e. in process.
II
8. There should be no difficulty in defining aim.
9. The appropriate structure will recognize structures outside itself.
10. The appropriate structure can work within any large structure
11. Once the appropriate structure can work within any large structure, some larger structure are more efficient than others.
12. There is no larger structure which is universally appropriate.
13. Commitment to an aim by an appropriate structure within a larger, inappropriate structure will give rise to a large, appropriate structure.
14. The quantitive structure is affected by qualitative action
III
15. Qualitative action is not bound by number
16. Any small unit committed to qualitative action can affect radical change on a scale outside its quantitative measure.
17. Quantitative action works by violence and breeds reaction.
18. Qualitative action works works by example and invites reciprocation.
19. Reciprocation between independent structures is a framework of interacting units which is itself a structure.
20. Any appropriate structure of interacting units can work within any other structure of interacting units.
21. Once this is so, some structures of interacting units are efficient than others.
I’ve recently discovered a new guilty pleasure – pretty much all of it is listed in the headline. Frankly it all makes a bit of sense if you follow the Warhol scene and go west. Going west being the penultimate thing that americans do.
Would I call it art? No, but I’d call it “Relational Aesthetics”.
The short lived Star Magazine (not to be confused with the current Star Magazine) was the most subversively notorious of all of it. Found in the grocery store next to magazines like Teen, Tiger Beat, Teen Beat and all the rest, Star would openly discuss the whole groupie scene – but would be able to stay on the PG-13 side of it. No easy feat.
The downside that Star gave the LA “groupie scene” was a new shot of youth – probably the last thing the existing girls wanted was a bunch of desperate, attention starved, thirteen year old girls who relished in the fact that they were jail-bait – and could care less. The most common knock against the “older” girls was exactly that – being called old. Star’s greatest moment was the “Sunset Strip Groupies” article in which Sable Star and Queenie call the other girls old – the other girls were all of 23.
Star magazine despite it’s over use of the word foxy is an amazing time capsule. Routinely featuring it’s own comic called Groupies, monthly columns; The Beauty and the Fox, an always amazing letters page, record reviews, etc. Great articles like: Chain Gang High School, Guys Who’ll Use You, Get Him Back- On His Knees!, Olga Korbut Goes Foxy, Nose-Job Diary, The Black Foxy Lady Look, will certainly keep you reading.
You might be wondering were you can find issues of this rare and short lived magazine. Go here: star1973.com. Ryan Richardson has turned his appreciation into a great web site with all 5 issues of Star.
Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco was pretty much the ground zero of the LA glam world and there are enough stories floating around to keep anyone amused for at least a few days. I’ll let you do some research on that one.
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I’m a fan of Marclay’s work, but with any artist some things hit and some things miss (sometimes by a lot, sometimes by a little) The two pieces by Marclay at Paula Cooper right now – it’s both.
I would guess the big story would be the premier of Marclay’s new video work – which I love the premise of. The video is 24 hours and it corresponds with the time of day in the location it’s being shown in – in other words when it’s 4:18 on the screen, it’s 4:18 in reality or in this case, New York City. In that part it’s clever. In watching it, I became focused on what time it was and how it was displayed that the narrative really went away (this could also be because there is no narrative). I found myself thinking about time, processing time in my head, and waiting for the next image of the clock to appear.
Funny enough, I found myself more interested in this outside the gallery (before and after) than inside actually watching the piece. Was it because I had just connected with a friend from out of town and wanted to talk or was it something else. Not sure. However the piece is a winner – I’m just not sure it’s a winner when you are in front of it. So it may be a bit problematic.
Also on display is a sculpture, Moebius Loop (image above) created of cassette tapes and zip ties, it’s use of reclaimed materials and cheap connections make for a very engaging artwork. In thinking deeper about the use of zip ties on this work – I started thinking a bit about how music connects communities through common language and events. In both of these pieces Marclay gives us a good bit to think about.
Bonus Play: “The Clock” to me carries with it a shared approach with Warhol’s “Screen Tests”. Intial viewing of the screen test may be viewed in many ways, but while viewing the screen tests I always started to become aware of time – knowing these were only three minutes. Often the seemed like the longest three minutes I had encountered.
(above) Christian Marclay. Moebius Loop, 1994, cassette tapes, nylon ties; 24 x 84 x 240 in.
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