From gingeranyhow comes the brilliant project, Embroidered Text Messages, received 02/06-04/07. 20 embroideries of love text messages.

Brilliant stuff found randomly via: yer sweet chimneys while searching for Maher Shalal Hash Baz mp3s.

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There is Xerox on the Insides of Your Eyelids opened October 2nd at the Pacific Northwest College of Art here in Portland, Oregon. Rich and I exploded boxes full of aged toner on my living room floor to sort new additions to the show and gather content for the book.

It was rad to see Sieben and Millard again, and meet Mel Kadel who all dropped in for the opening talk before their show, From the Desk of Whatserface opened at fifty24pdx later that evening.

The show will remain for the month of October alongside an exhibition of live scrawlings by Rich Jacobs and a collection of photos by myself.

Next up: Holland, NYC and a coffee table near you.

via: xeroxeyelids.com

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In the same way Battle Bots stood as a pedestrian incarnation of Survival Research Labs (minus the bb’s, blade saws, and burning carrion), Robert Seidel’s Phyletic Museum stands as a purely aesthetic expression of Graffiti Research Lab’s signature technique for social engineering/mind-fuckery.

Fortunately, there’s still room in the world for beauty as meaning in and of itself.

Created for the 100th anniversary of the Phyletic Museum founded by Ernst Haeckel, Seidel’s centennial homage repurposed the museum as canvas for his palate of naturalist-sourced eye candy on 2/2/2008 in Jena, Germany.

More screensaver than stance, the scale and execution of Seidel’s performance may be spectacle sans subversion, but it succeeds not only in securing a place in a space of certain beauty, it’s given me the opportunity to mention SRL and GRL in a single sentence which may be worth the price of attention alone.

Watch: Documentation Trailer by Philipp Hirsch (+)

via: Seidel/2minds / Cocoia / Ernst Haeckel

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The cover of Cabinet magazine’s 30th issue caught my eye tonight while on my first Powell’s browsing jaunt in ages. Namely, a small sailboat floating through an aged and darkening tunnel. A few years ago I tracked a similar image to it’s original source — a pictorial of a de-comissioned soviet nuclear submarine shelter and shots by the folks exploring it. Starting with that link, I discovered that something i’d been into most of my life had a name, urban exploration.

Tourist attraction or not, I couldn’t describe how badly I wanted to be floating above that sub channel with the lights on meters deep — on a boat similar to the one on Cabinet’s cover. Which brings me back to that issue, and me fervently flipping through pages to find the article related to that shot.

The closest thing I could find was Caveman: An Interview with Michel Siffre by Joshua Foer. Sweeping the article for keywords that led to the cover, i instead found the likes of freezing temperatures, a tent next to a glacier, 100m deep, 2 months, and self-experimentation in isolation beyond time. I forgave Cabinet the elusive advertising and headed home to see what I could find.

Rather than ramble on describing how Siffre’s experiment not only fueled the science of chronobiology , and how all of this paralleled the space race, I’ll just suggest you take a look at the short documentary about his Beyond Time experiments. Note: This requires signup for Babelgum which actually looks promising as an independent/green-related alternative to similar sites. Some amazing Urbex accounts below too.

Beyond Time: Time, at Babelgum

Urbex: Russos(+,+) / Niagara Confluence!! / Opacity / San Zhi

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References to the abuse of pink and octopi, a nudie flip book sequence with an ode to spider webs voice over and a series of all-to-brief, intimate conversational excerpts found in the trailer for Eileen Yaghoobian’s doc about rock posters all leave me hoping it way to the states much sooner than later.

The film’s description and featured artist list from the site only serve to hammer the anticipation home. See for yourself:

Died Young, Stayed Pretty is a candid look at the underground poster culture in North America. This unique documentary examines the creative spirit that drives these indie graphic artists. They pick through the dregs of America’s schizophrenic culture and piece them back together…Yaghoobian shows these artists for what they are: the vivisectionists of America’s morbidly obese consumer culture.

Brian Chippendale • Art Chantry • Print Mafia • Andrew Bird • DMBQ • Clyde Jones • Ron Liberti • Tom Hazelmyer • Stephen McClellan • Bryce McCloud • Seripop • Ames Bros • Methane Studios • El Bado/William Ballard • Tyler Stout • Rob Jones • Jay Ryan • Mat Daly • Nick Butcher • Keith Herzik • Steve Walters • Shawn Wolfe • Noel Waggener • Jeff Kleinsmith • Mig Kokinda • Dale Flattum • Mike King • Dan Schlissel • Stainboy • Uncle Charlie • American Poster Institute

via: Eileen Yaghoobian / diedyoungstayedpretty.com

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Dustin Humphrey’s new work for the Insight DOPAMINE campaign and video does for surfing what Crazy Dan Sturt did for skateboarding with booms and other assorted means of breaking envelopes beyond the fisheye. Brilliant.

via: ffffound / designyoutrust

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My friend Jess Gibson has been busy in the NEMO basement making strides on his side film project with Portland designer Aaron Draplin appropriately titled, The Draplin Thing. From the sound of things at Jess’s site, editing is closing in on completion — just as soon as they get back from the World’s Largest Yard Sale.

Check out the new trailer (Draplin vs. USA) and join us in the ranks of those eagerly awaiting a deeper look into the mind of a true American original.

via: Jess Gibson / Draplin Design Co., North America

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I stumbled on Dark Beloved Cloud sometime in 1999. Back when the label was still based in New York. I was digging for a copy of Fly Ashtray’s Clumps Takes A Ride, yet another cassette that suffered the same fate as the Mommyheads tape I’ve written about… curdled in the heat of early-90’s South Floridian sun. And just like Swiss Army Knife, Clumps became progressively harder to find as the years went on. The fact that even in their “heyday” both were relatively obscure, compounded their elusivity further.

After a few emails and a never-realized design trade, Dark Beloved Cloud’s owner, Douglas Wolk, confirmed that he did indeed have a copy, and kindly hooked me with Clumps in both plastic and vinyl. A couple more generously stuffed envelopes later, and many other DBC artists found their way into my collection and onto my plate of earfood — Azalia Snail, The Magick Heads, Spaceheads, some Uncle Wiggly that I never knew existed and Fly Ashtray guitarist James Kavoussi’s almighty alter-persona, pHoaming Edison.

Fly Ashtray deserves and likely will receive a post of their own here someday. They’re among the handful of bands whose music fundamentally altered the landscape of listening for me. In fact, they were a shoe-in before I ever even dropped the needle. Their name alone detonated an avalanche of pre-pubescent memories — Star Wars and Micronaut figures manning the cockpit of my parents ashy, functional version of their namesake.

Then as now, Fly Ashtray’s sound swings the ~25yr gamut from quirky pop, deeply explorative noise to neo-psychedelic heaviness. Even when coupled with a frequent helping of silly lyrics and song titles, the hallmark of their home/rec mastery is never lost. Kavoussi’s solo releases as pHoaming Edison bear the brilliant genetic signature of Fly Ashtray (and vice-versa) garbled in crap-sounding lo-tech splendor. Occasional cover tracks easily finding a place in the ranks of an unrealized list of tops (should I ever realize the need to write one).

When Douglas Wolk moved to Portland a few years ago, he made the coastal switch with a new addition to the family and a few book titles in tow. Namely, the much-heralded Reading Comics and his 117 page critical introspective James Brown: Live at the Apollo for Continuum’s 33⅓ book series.

It turns out Wolk is also one of the hardest working men in the music/comic critic business. Lucky for us, he brought Dark Beloved Cloud along with him and still finds time to bring the precipitating noise.

Noise that is made readily available via the DBC catalog and the ill-conceived (not ill meaning ill, but ill meaning ill) Singles Club. A collaborative means of sampling the label’s catalog in the form of 3-inch CD singles swapped in exchange for the investment of your own creative time and effort. Design a cover for the latest single, send it in and get the single adorned with someone else’s cover artwork. A simple, brilliant concept that Fly Ashtray is currently wielding for the release of their latest plate, Pantswind Folder. See? Totally silly album titles as well.

If you dig the links below, get in on both collabs and find yourself far from disappointed.

s|b Muxtape v.0002 → HYPOBLAST! Fly Ashtray + pHoaming Edison
The Dark Beloved Cloud Muxtape

Dark Beloved Cloud: Precipitated / Band Pages / Singles Club / covers
Douglas Wolk: Lacunae / Reading Comics / JB 33⅓ / 52 Pickup / Slate / Savage Critic / Kottke Interview
Fly Ashtray: off.site, blog + mspce / Discog / Videos / Song Titles / Thanks Mauvis
pHoaming Edison: mspce / Silly Bird

 

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SB/MUXTAPE.0002 → HYPOBLAST! Fly Ashtray + pHoaming Edison

Fly Ashtray 2nd Song (1:58)
Fly Ashtray Harmony Grutz (2:54)
Fly Ashtray Moist Floor Ruined My Bad Idea (3:13)
Fly Ashtray Best Boy (2:43)
Fly Ashtray Hypoblast! (1:40)
Fly Ashtray Berries (3:01)
Fly Ashtray Flunch (3:31)
pHoaming Edison Laughing at Keys (2:43)
pHoaming Edison Owl Mound (1:30)
pHoaming Edison Street Fighting Man (1:59)
pHoaming Edison Crate (Let’s Have Some) (1:16)
Fly Ashtray My Flash On You (2:21)

sourced: Fly Ashtray / pHoaming Edison
also see: muxtape with coverflow using fluid

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Continuing with the toner thread, I recently found the blatantly semi-local (mere excuse for a JFA ref) Jason Willis Flyer Collection (’81-’06) while searching out resources for giving visual direction to one of our designers on a Nemo project. I actually remember receiving multi-generational copies of these used as stationary for scrawled notes folded into zines during the early eighties. 

Bryan Ramond Turcotte has a wider sourced compilation in his book, Fucked Up and Photocopied: Instant Art of the Punk Rock Movement, the predecessor to Punk Is Dead Punk Is Everything and the source of this post’s title.

It seems obvious to mention Bryan Coley, Lydia Lunch and Thurston Moore’s No Wave — a chronicle of the collision of art and punk in the New York underground of 1976 to 1980. No Wave was recently released with an exhibition at KS Art and a Teenage Jesus and The Jerks show at Knitting Factory NYC. Thanks to Rich for the tip on this one.

more: TJ+tJ show (sb_t) / No Wave (prefix,vid)

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