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This record is so good that I'm astounded these guys weren't on the cover of Downbeat or Spin or something. This record is so fucking good that I had to immediately listen through it a second time after getting it, a little stunned it hadn't been a part of my life already. I called one of the guys in the band, now defunct, and pretty much said, "Why the fuck didn't you tell me you guys had recorded a modern masterpiece?" This record is the REAL DEAL-a hard, intricate, punk rock Bitches Brew noise orchestral masterpiece. Raw, attacking, intensely complex, glorious. After Laddio disbanded half of the group formed the trailblazin' Electric Turn to Me, who are on some Siouxsie meets My Bloody Valentine meets crushing wall of sound shit (the other half formed The Psychic Paramount). Electric Turn To Me's album, "Clouds Move Fast", is a treat too, don't get me wrong, but this Laddio Bolocko recording, which I'd heard mentioned in passing all over the place, is a wonder, blows me away. Laddio Bolocko will be missed.
Performed by the Flea Theater's performance team, "The Bats", and spellbindingly directed by Jim Simpson, this workshop performance ($5, including a beer!) of Wellman's "Cellophane" knocked me out. Something of a series of poetic monologues made up of as he would say, "bad language", the words flow from the actors in nonsensical streams like Shakespearean poetry. Some of the actors simply ripped into the material with a forceful eloquence made all the more beautiful because the material flowed from disjointed stream-of-consciousness musings. (Of the two dozen performers a handful definitely stood out but I specifically remember the brother, a Mr. Oberon K. A. Adjepong.) "Cellophane" worked-experimental, abstract, as gripping as "Gone With The Wind" (as written by Gertrude Stein). Most of the performances exemplary, the stage design gripping, a living, breathing part of the production (lights, fans, barrels). Restored my faith in theater.
Mad cool wall bombs all over the Martinez walls by graf artists VFR (since '85), JA (since '87), Skuf (since '91), and Giz, (since '93). Raw shit bleeding down everywhere, drippings and all, vibrant, colorful, sick-bombed the hell out of the joint. This was the "art opening" followed by Bobbito (aka DJ Cucumberslice) and DJ Rich Medina up on the decks spinning deep beats, rare grooves, Afro beat, Latin rhythms, and heavy classic hip-hop. Me very happy. Me dance (with Melissa I think). A party. "Happening".
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Soulful, black ghetto techno meets Miles' "Bitches Brew" (that again). Kenny Dixon Jr. is so sure of what he's doing these days that he's casually tossing off masterpieces. This secret garden is Aphex Twin & Luke Slater vibing with my uncle Cee-Cee at a family cookout circa '79 (spaghetti, okra, ribs). A "Metropolis" future meets a Bill Withers past. A techno-discofied soundtrack to "Blade Runner" with the cast of "The Wiz". The secret garden, indeed. |
In a series that featured bench-clearing brawls, players assaulted by fans in the bullpen, coach Don Zimmer almost sent to the hospital, these two bitter rivals steamrolled into Game 7 of the ALCS. New York City vs. Boston. Clemens vs. Martinez. The Red Sox jumped on the Yanks early and, 5 runs ahead, seemingly had the Curse of the Bambino off their backs, headed to the World Series (against the Cubs-not!). But the Yankees, as they always find a way to do, at least against the Red Sox, fought and scratched and clawed their way back. Red Sox coach Grady got a raw deal in retrospect for his decision to leave Pedro in-'yo, stick with your man, everybody know that. My only qualm is that Pedro was so very obviously done, you could sense it by the fifth, hitters were getting around on him, consistently, and nobody ever, ever does that to Pedro. Aaron Boone joins the ranks of mediocre nobodies who put on the pinstripes and perform their way into baseball immortality, in the bottom of the eleventh. I was in a little dive bar in downtown Oakland for this game and damn near had the whole place rooting for the Yanks I was so crazed. It was a coming out New York sports moment for this die hard Chicago boy. (Just wait until they move the Nets to Brooklyn.)
Light. Space. The rooms pleasant to move through in an almost religious manner, aside from the art. (Sometimes you can move through the art.) I felt myself dancing through the space and across the floor at times-the art pieces like music. Though a boy's club Hanne Darboven's "Kulturgeschichte 1880-1983 (Cultural History 1880-1983)" was what actually moved me the most. I was simultaneously overwhelmed (many of the cryptic sheets of drawings and writing), aroused (Der Stern magazine covers), nearly brought to tears (photos of New York City doorways-thousands), saddened (Vietnam photo of the Vietcong man shot on television), moved (miscellaneous postcards), intrigued (World War photographs), romantically warmed (photos of old film camera and movie stars), released (various sculptures strewn about the room, a relief from the tension built up by searching up and down the walls). Shadows from window frames spray across Serra's "Torqued Ellipses". Flavin's light bulbs look beautiful in the sunlight. Fred Sandback allowed me to "walk through" art, yarn and string, sometimes without knowing I was doing so (perhaps this is what Nauman was trying to get at on that sheet down in the basement). Richter is Richter. Beuys. Sol Lewitt. Heizer. Agnes Martin. Ryman. I could sleep in this place. Throw a party. Meditate. Make love. Light. Space.