Posted in 3 parts to the YouTube by a fan, is this holiday classic. A shorter edit of it was created for, and I believe can still be viewed, in the collection of Buffalo, New York’s Squeaky Wheel. This episode is a bit of a slow starter, but, like an old movie, you need to stick with it while the suspense builds up to the big payoff.

The published obituary from today’s Albany Times Union is reproduced below.

David M. Zagorski

Zagorski, David M. ALBANY David Michael Zagorski, 37, died peaceful at home on July 25, 2010. He is survived by wife, Amelia; mother, Beverly; father, Rich; stepmother, Layne; brother, Rick; and sisters, Lexi Mae and Skye. David attended Shenendehowa High School and Niagara University. He enjoyed a lifetime of travel and adventure, had extraordinary talent and skill, and was a determined entrepreneur. He established Earth Traders import company, Saratoga Candle Co., Parc Candle Co., and Analog Underground Recording Studios. David was an adept carpenter. He was an artist and musician whose energy and imagination spilled into everything he did. He was a founding member of two brilliant indie rock bands: Giant Ray Soda and Tom Fiction. A ceremony celebrating David’s life will be held at Albany Rural Cemetery Chapel, Cemetery Avenue, Menands, NY 12204 at 10:00 on Saturday, July 31. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Community Hospice of Albany Co., 445 New Karner Rd., Albany, NY 12205.

Out today in the US is the debut slab from Riotgod, and it is awesome! They are fronted by our old pal Mark Sunshine and feature the rhythm section from Monster Magnet. So, yeah… Heavy and Rocking.

The release is available in physical form at your local record store or from Amazon. You can also get it on the iTunes.

In 2007 Monster Magnet’s Bob Pantella and Jim Baglino created their own alternate universe under the Riotgod banner, inviting guitarist Garrett Sweeny and the estranged vocalist known only as Sunshine to travel the cosmos with them. Their achieved collective goal is “Riotgod”, their debut album containing some of the most energetic, recognizable and high quality Hard Rock this side of Mars. Dare to meet your Riotgod! The initial 1000 copies will be in digipak format with bonus tracks.

Music video for Autoautomatic from “The Target Museum.” Directed/produced/edited by Olivia Robinson & Jesse Stiles. Music by Jesse Stiles, lyrics by Jesse Ball & Jesse Stiles. Filmed in New Delhi, India.

NEW! From Jesse Stiles on Wow Cool’s sister label Specific Recordings is the sizzling, much anticipated release the Target Museum as a limited-edition vinyl Picture Disk. There is also a related videogame by Moleindustria called Inside a Dead Skyscraper.

Jesse Stiles’ long awaited debut is here on approximately 250 slabs of crazy looking vinyl. Many of the songs on this record were written while Jesse worked wearing a hazmat suit inside one of the partially destroyed buildings surrounding the ground zero site. They capture that hallucination of contradictory images and turn them into catchy and unique electronic pop masterpieces. The Target Museum was recorded on a former military base in Wendover, Utah and various parts of India.

The release party was Saturday night at 51 3rd Street in Troy, New York with Jesse, Denim & Diamonds, Stephan Moore of Evidence and Crossbow. Wish I could have attended. The last time I played at 51 3rd, Jesse was booked at the other side of town with both our shows that much the poorer for it. (Thanks for the shout-out on the Evidence LP in the show announcement, Jesse! Do you still have that old rotary metal stool of mine? It was quite musical, I hope it was of use.)

Also released earlier this year is Watson Songs by The Jesse Stiles 3000

Please go check out my article and series of videos on the Kung Fu Magazine site. I followed around Wushu competitor Kyle Loehr at the 2010 Tiger Claw’s KungFuMagazine.com Championships and WildAid Champion competitions at last month’s Shark City Nationals in San Jose. My photos from the event are online at Wow Cool’s new photo site.

From The Guidepost English Reader 2A. ET, The Extraterrestrial Meets the Inspector and asks to use his phone; and is given the tourist treatment. Garfield looks on approvingly. The book also features Popeye, Minnie and Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Little Duck, The Pink Panther, Little Bee and a girl named Angel. The Penguin baby promised on the back cover never appears. Printed in Taiwan?

Hosted by the great James Burke of Connections fame.

And I couldn’t come up with much. I never knew or worked with the man. We had never met. But I know his art, and have saved a great deal of his comics. I still have a great admiration for his refined, yet fluid craft. One of the best lines ever put to paper. Superhuman mark making ability. I wanted to dig up some of the more obscure items from his publishing history that I have stored away here… but they are stored away pretty deeply and I have much work to do right now. And, frankly, scanning other people’s old comic work is an act that just depresses me.

Al Williamson was one of the great comics artists of the 20th century. The youngest of the EC Comics stable of greats, the definitive modern artist on Star Wars and Alex Raymond’s creations Flash Gordon and Secret Agent Corrigan (X-9). All my attempts to find something to say usually ended in memories of my mentor at the School of Visual Arts, fellow EC great, and editor of Al on several classic short stories for DC Comics, Joe Orlando, who has also long-since left us.

Rick Veitch, however, had the direct experience with the man and has had much to share about it over the last couple of weeks. Rick has always been one of my favorite people in comics, and I am very grateful that he has published a strip of mine in the past and put up with my young foolish noodling on some of his books co-published with Tundra during my time with them. Thank you for these memories Mr. Veitch.

My Friend Al Williamson

Meeting Al Williamson

Meeting Al in the Flesh

Working With Al Williamson On Star Wars

More Al Williamson Memories

NEW July 8, 2010: More Thoughts On Al Williamson including a lovely piece of art from Blade Runner.

If you got through all that, you will also want to read this post from my amigo Steve Bissette.

Side A

Side B

A couple weeks ago I was given the assignment by Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine to follow one martial artist – Kyle Loehr (pictured above) – around the WildAID Tiger Champion and Tiger Claw’s Kung Fu Magazine Champions competitions at the 2010 Shark City Nationals in San Jose, California. Video and a full article are forthcoming on Kung Fu Mag’s site. In the meanwhile I’ve posted 60-odd of my best photos from the event here on Wow Cool’s new Photography section. More on that soon!

Radio Free Blissville Plays at Anthology Film Archives’ NewFilmmakers Program. Depicts Life After the Information Apocalypse via Pirate Radio

The 19-minute fiction piece, set in the near future, delves into the use of underground pirate radio in urban areas after the cascading destruction of major satellite networks and the Internet. Andrew Hampsas plays Lenox, who drives through ravaged neighborhoods while broadcasting via pirate radio transmissions. He offers public announcements, dedications, and on-the-spot interviews. Director J.F. Culhane says: “If you look at it, covert and independent radio has been a consistent voice in communities where a way of life has been wrecked via a natural disaster as in Haiti’s earthquake, political oppression as in Zimbabwe, or even cultural censorship as England’s ban of Rock ‘n Roll in the 1960s.”

The film, which is now being developed as a feature, also stars Baqi Abdush-Shaheed, Marina Julia Neary, and Joe Lihach, and features music by A.B. Do Well, Heavycreme Musics, The Center for Audio Visual Research, nickname: Rebel, and Patrick Heilman. Photography by Peter Nappi.

Anthology Film Archives is located at 32 Second Ave @ 2nd Street, New York. The screening, which is $6, is June 30, 2010 at 6 pm.

See the online schedule for more details. For more information about Radio Free Blissville, go to http://rfblissville.com

Rammelzee performing live at the kitchen, NYC circa 1987. photo by Marc Arsenault.

Word comes to us this evening via Davey D on his Twitter feed that Hip-Hop pioneer Rammellzee has died at age 49. As originally reported on Consequence of Sound. UPDATE Rammellzee’s death was confirmed by his wife, as reported in today’s New York Times.

I was very lucky to see him perform at the Kitchen in New York City in the mid-1980s (picture above). Rammellzee surprised everyone when he suddenly came out with the album The Bi-Conicals of the Rammellzee in 2004. It was a record that seemed perfectly in place with the times. It fit in well with the works of Dälek and UK Grime like Dizzee Rascal’s “Boy In da Corner“.

A bit closer to home, the album featured Paul Geluso on bass and mixing. Paul had previously been a member of 5 Chin 400 with long-time Brown Cuts Neighbors drummer Michael Lopez. (5 Chin 400’s debut single is still available here at Wow Cool).

Another photo from the Kitchen show | Get the Biconicals CD from Amazon | Rammellzee’s Gothic Futurism site

The Kickstarter project is fully funded as of today, with about 2 days to go until it officially closes!!! I’ll send more updates and images once the camera and field recorder arrive. In the meantime, continuing to tighten up the script… tentatively scheduled to begin recording the narration in August.

Thanks for the support!!!!

More help would be wonderful. Where else can you executive produce such a great project for only $200? Get on over there and pitch in!

No clue what is going on here. “The new version of the KTM – solid state, run off 12-v battery” Yeah. OK. Right. Scott is, of course, half of Evidence.

I need as many people as I can get in their best zombified state – skin rotting off, shambling, lusting for brains – to show up in front of Psycho Donuts in Campbell, California at 7pm tonight (Tuesday, June 22, 2010) for a big Christmas in June setting up event/photoshoot for a special Psycho Donuts publication.

Psycho Donuts (Map)
2006 Winchester Boulevard
Campbell, CA 95008-3400
(408) 378-4540

When I first saw a tweet of the news that Frank Sidebottom had left us today, I was pretty sure it could not mean that Chris Sievey, the man behind the enormous head, was actually dead. Maybe just taking a break or retiring the character he’d played for over a quarter century. But, no, very sadly, Chris Sievey, who had been fighting a cancer that he seemed very likely to win, died suddenly on the morning of June 21, 2010.

I was friends with Frank on MySpace, followed his tweets, and had even sent him music for his long running Radio Timeperley show. It always made me happy to know that he was still out there doing this extraordinarily silly work.

One of my favorite clips. David Soul! The Fall’s Hit the North! Classic!

Check out Frank’s music on Amazon and iTunes.

The late, great Reginald Gardiner had a nightclub act where he did sound effect renditions of wallpaper designs and trains, or so the story goes. That piece was recorded at some point and ended up on the soundtrack for “At Home Abroad“, which could be borrowed from the Schenectady Public Library, and, thus, lives on today. Now, I dug this thing up many years after Brown Cuts Neighbors had released a cassette named after this in 1994. I have no idea what the actual story is as to why that title was chosen.

You can download the original act yourself from iTunes: Trains by Reginald Gardiner

Support the production of the film!

I mourn the loss of any of the pioneers of TV variety very greatly and closely. Jimmy was one of the last of the greats of the golden (OK, black and white) era. Jimmy and Rowlf the dog (Jim Henson on voice and one hand and head and Frank Oz on the other hand) was such a classic double act. Watching these old clips and seeing the humour play out with Jimmy often lose it on screen from the richness of the gags just tears me up now. Like we lost something somewhere. What do I know? I’m a sucker for anything Muppet.

Jimmy Dean totally cranks it up to awesome all on his own in Diamonds are Forever, a film that still reigns as an all time favorite from having seen it way too many times as a kid.

Associated Press Obituary: Singer, sausage businessman Jimmy Dean dies at 81

Sorry, I never really intended this to become the dead celebrity blog. Sadly there are more on the way soon.

Three quarters of nickname: Rebel also get it on as the band Creature Comforts. They were featured on San Francisco’s Pirate Cat Radio on Saturday, June 12 in the Cheap Hooch Show. It is highly entertaining and you should download and listen to the podcast of the broadcast now.
download and listen to the podcast

Creature Comforts are playing two shows in San Francisco this month. Details on the Wow Cool events page.

Pirate Cat Radio is a studio, performance space and community asset located at 2781 21st Street, San Francisco. They provide a 24/7 program stream accessible on on the web by individual listeners. Pirate Cat Radio from time to time has been downloaded from the web and transmitted over the air as an extra-legal (unlicensed) service in Los Angeles, in Vancouver B.C., in Berlin, and in San Francisco using 87.9 fm and possibly other frequencies.

One of the most memorable scenes in all of cinema for me is that in Joseph Strick’s version of James Joyce’s Ulysses of the tower and the famous breakfast scene. This maverick of independent cinema has left us aged 86.

One of the true greats has left us. Sigmar Polke, known here – at least in the 80’s – as one of the ‘new German painters’ – has died at 69. A serious inspiration to myself. I love his circles and colors and will be sad that there are to be no more of them.

The Wikipedia version of Sigmar’s life.

Watch the whole thing here. Now.

Give ‘em hell, Nao.

Yes… there will be commercials.

I could stare at this package all day. From a long gone golden age of design. So much more inspiring than what the same product gets today. Purchased for 50 cents at a local yard sale.

Here is Nao Bustamante’s one-hit wonder band. “Female 2 Male Adaptor” or “F2M Adaptor” or “FTM Adaptor.” I’m not sure which. I heard they only had one gig. what an awesome song, “Not a Robot” !!! Band members: Nao, Tyler Jacobsen, Jesse Stiles, and Seth Cluett. Mr T. and Fufu make a guest appearance. It’s funny how it already looks vintage with the types of phones they all have. I think it’s from 2001?

“Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” premiers tonight on Bravo TV. Check local listings for show times.

At the beginning, I’m really into it, but then you come to a point where you realize the whole day you’re going to be drawing doorknobs. And I start to think, “I don’t care how cool this thing I’m working on is, I don’t want my whole day to be about this doorknob.” It’s like sitting still and looking at the trees for fourteen hours. Do you want to do that? Or “Wow, I’m drawing bricks all day. This is fun.” I could see doing that for a single piece, but I started to get into painting the backgrounds more and more and doing one or two of them a day, when now, it would take me a week to do one of those. I was very ambitious, and I couldn’t realize each and every idea I had, and I couldn’t pick which one was worthy of my time. I had so many ideas, so many stories, and I didn’t know which one to work on. These aren’t the feelings I want to be experiencing, so it’s easier to jump around and work on the cool things I really want to work on, and hopefully one of them will get done someday.

Clips from the footage Nao Bustamante shot for her Bravo Audition. “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” premiers this Wednesday evening, June 9th.

What will secure Troy, New York’s place in history… it’s mark on the map? Sanforization? Arrow Shirts? Uncle Sam? Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute? No. I think it will be Nao Bustamante’s run on Bravo’s new TV show “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” which premiers this Wednesday evening, June 9th.

More on the show from Vanity Fair

Tom Otterness’s ‘Another World’ Installation’ of bronze figures was written about here previously. The work has taken on a new incarnation as it seems the cast bronze figures are now too hot to handle from sitting in the sun and are now mostly surrounded by plastic white picket fences with taped on warning notices that you should “Please Use Caution. Artwork May Be Hot”. Surely, after so many public installations, the artist would have known better. I have to wonder… what is the true purpose of this work and how is it intended to involve the audience? How best to engage with this thermal disaster of public art?

Alternative Meat - a section in the frozen foods aisle at Whole Foods

Chinese Spaghetti Sauce

Lucky Swallow

Ethnic Hair Care - at Target. I think they mean Black

Mountain Dew Throwback - Made with real sugar

RAPE - Someone spelled out RAPE with the animal print letters at the fabric store - click to enlarge.

And, yes, Alternative Meat is a great punk rock band name. Go run with it. I don’t need it.

Avoid the Future reviewed my “The Girl From Mars” contribution to the Newave! Minicomix book from Fantagraphics, saying “furious inkiness unleashes psycho-sexual horror. V.Appealing mix of techniques!”

UK and European folks, get your new Simon Gane SAP T-shirts direct from Simon. the rest of you can order from Wow Cool.

My awesome wife Jennifer Oh has finally launched her own web site – JenOhSays.com. If you’ve ever wondered about the inner working of the Oh/Arsenault household then here’s your chance. Jen chronicles our long, strange journey into healthier and more natural living, something that was mainly prompted by trying to raise our two kids as healthy as we can. A range of topics are and will be covered, including: organic gardening, disaster preparedness, detoxifying your home, eating good on a budget, making your own cheese, bread, yogurt and more, and finding the perfect tool for the job. A great example of that last one was learning that a little phallic ten dollar device called the Clog Buster, that you can get at your local Ace hardware, will save you from ever buying or making drain cleaner again.

nickname: Rebel has committed it’s second exclusive session for Mark Whitby on Dandelion Radio. Featured are four new tracks, each featuring new drum genius Robb Cole (formerly of Brevator, To Hell and Back and Kitty Little). Three of these were achieved with the assistance of Mr. Andrew Sullivan on the black and whites. Those same three were recorded at the charming 3431 Studios in Oakland, California, home to Rogue Wave, among many others.

You may listen to the session online for the entire month of June. Our friends in Europe may listen to nickname: Rebel’s previous Dandelion Radio session on the Spotify Service.