Archives for October 2009

An Albatross close CMJ and kill while at it

October 25, 2009 By Mimi Luse Leave a Comment

Photos by Mimi Luse.

The venerable harlequin thrash-core group An Albatross (Wilkes Barre, PA) closed the Panache Booking showcase at Union Pool this Saturday, capping off a week of excellent shows during this year’s CMJ Music Marathon. An Albatross have heavy thrasher guitar riffs, deep molasses bass lines, and break-neck drumming, but their lead vocalist, Eddie B. Gieda III, exudes a crusty glam-rock swagger and screams like a depraved Steven Tyler, sweating profusely, smiling with a false propriety, punishing his tambourine as if this were the last cry for help from a torture chamber of self-inflicted mental water-boarding.

When I walked backstage after the show to talk to Gieda, I found him on a tiny set of stairs, sobbing with his head between his knees. “He always cries after his shows” a thin blonde lady friend informed me, gently fanning him with a rolled-up shirt. “What are you thinking about when you’re performing?” I ask him. “I think of myself as somewhere between a fetus just prior to birth and a human form just about to die. And about how absolutely dehydrated and malnourished I am” he replied. This was An Albatross’s first US show this year, and kicks off a month-long tour of back-to-back shows all over the country. Watch footage of this show here.

Where Brooklyn Meets the Sky

October 25, 2009 By Ethan Pettit Leave a Comment

Jonah Byrd and Mary Madsen of Jigsaw Soul

If East Williamsburg is not the most beautiful place on earth, it’s pretty close. It’s a neighborhood where Pentecostal churches hold rousing services in the streets outside their storefronts. It’s a place of industry and warehousing, where vertical tenements look over horizontal shipping yards. Low slung warehouses give the place a big sky. It is massive and sublime in a way that makes the Williamsburg of the waterfront look quaint.

We are in an area that is considered to be part of Bushwick. Into the heart of the valley curls the fetid tail of Newtown Creek. Hither and yon lie great truck yards and old railroad tracks. It is full of trucks. It also full of exotic people. We are at the epicenter of an artist community, one of those aggregations of worldly and professional folks who change everything, completely and forever, wherever and whenever they arrive.

Watching the Laundry Go Round

October 25, 2009 By Philippe Theise Leave a Comment

Although we tend to think of trips to the laundromat as dull-but-necessary interruptions in our perusal of neighborhood art, music, and culture—or even of a weekend afternoon on the couch—three clothes-washing establishments on the Northside, contain engrossing, curious phenomena, as well as welcoming communities of customers, proprietors, and staff.

It was the unusual décor that made my first extended visit to the F&M Laundromat at 84 Norman Avenue in Greenpoint an unexpected and mildly transformative delight. Within a rectangular interior, panels of fluorescent lights shine over three rows of silver, orange, and bright yellow washers. Five large dryers are also orange, and a row of light custard dryers matches both the tiled floor and a stretch of decorative plastic shingling just below the ceiling. Laminated faux-wood paneling covers much of the walls, and a long, sleek, red table for folding clothes is composed of two rectangular units and a smaller, asymmetrical abutment. It looks like a piece of neo-plastic sculpture that has been adapted for practical use. The overall effect is warm, artificial, and incubating.

Standing in the back of this comforting and odd space, something about the sharp, blue numerals on the dryer LCDs tripped an inner switch, and I felt as if I was doing laundry in New York for the first time. The feeling made me recall an environmental installation by the Scandinavian artist Olafur Eliasson at MoMA two summers ago. The elements that comprise Eliasson’s 360º room for all colours include stainless steel, fluorescent lights, and wood (real, not fake), and a curatorial description of the artist’s work goes right to the heart of the Laundromat’s appeal: “By transforming the gallery into a hybrid space of nature and culture, Eliasson prompts an intensive engagement with the world and offers a fresh consideration of everyday life.”

Rise Against the Demon Monoculture

October 25, 2009 By WG News + Arts Leave a Comment

An interview with Reverend Billy
By Lucas Kavner

Reverend Billy on his theatrical-activist persona: “This is Gotham City! We create our characters and heroes.” Photos by Brennan Cavanaugh

Preaching a message of anti-consumerism and a return to the bygone days of New York City, is the Reverend Billy (a.k.a. Bill Talen). The reverend and his activist performance group The Church of Stop Shopping, have a history of activism. He has railed and thumped outside the Disney Store in Times Square. He was involved with the Morgan Spurlock-produced documentary “What Would Jesus Buy.” He has a 35-member choir and an eight-piece band. Since the late 90’s the Reverend Billy has positioned himself as a Savonarola against the retail renaissance, pitching hellfire and damnation at the somnambulant mall culture creeping into our vibrant city. Exorcising demons directly from cash registers at Victoria’s Secret. Laying healing hands upon ATM machines. Exhorting midtown tourists not to spend another dime, hallelujah. He is the rev with the big hair. The hipster’s Billy Graham. An icon of New York street life of our times.

Hip to Be Square: Halloween De-Stijl-It-Yourself

October 23, 2009 By Anne Szustek Leave a Comment

Anne S goes Mondrian at a Williamsburg Halloween DIY.

Ever since I took AP Art History junior year at my high school in Minneapolis’ western suburbs, I have been enamored with the black right angles and the crisp use of primary colors in the works of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian, member of the early 20th century art movement neoplasticism, also known by the Dutch term De Stijl, or “the style.”

Mondrian’s planar color fields have inspired many designers in the ensuing decades, notably Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian day dress from 1965, today part of the collection at the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute. More recently, Nike released its Dunk SB Low Piet Mondrian sneaker, and dozens of sellers on Etsy have shown design through a square lens.