tom moody
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"Aye-aye-aye" [mp3 removed] My first real house track (I originally said "techno house" but don't want to put off anyone who envisions "pounding" and "Berlin" when they see the t-word--the little electro touches don't make this piece any less friendly). I have some other plans for this tune, but this is the basic concept.
An addendum to two recent posts, the one on hippies and the one on Gary Wilson's Mary Had Brown Hair. Bill's comment reminded me that the Mothers of Invention's We're Only In It For the Money, which Wilson's record was compared to here, also contains "Flower Punk," a song ridiculing donning beads and moving to Haight (written in 1967!). That has nothing to do with Wilson--I was thinking in my comparison more of the mood of "Let's Make the Water Turn Black" and "Idiot Bastard Son" from the same LP* which are kind of wistful and hook-y in addition to having a sonic sculpture aspect (and being weird). "Flower Punk" offers solid proof, though, along with the more-sardonic-than-you-remember commune scene in Easy Rider, that not every baby-boomer bought (or buys) into the generational mythology--that the seeds of the present day critique of "codes of representation" vis a vis hippies, to the extent that's going on, were already well sprouted back in the day. Zappa preferred "freak"--sort of the wised-up, media-savvy, L.A. version of long haired non-conformism. Nevertheless, it's the earth mama and Neal Cassady dropping the hammer that we fondly eulogize, or recycle in the art world every ten years.
*The LP as opposed to Zappa's disastrous 80s CD remix. --music nerd
Modern Art Notes spotted a funny headline over a recent NY Observer review by neocon grump Hilton Kramer: "Realist Richard Baker Confers His Anxiety On Tulips, Lemons." It's the bored headline writer's revenge for having to read a by-the-numbers, ridiculously hedged review. Kramer's main point (I think) isn't that Baker makes still life subjects anxious, but that the artist dissipates his talent in not-so-clever pictorial tricks calling attention to the paint medium. A more accurate (and Kramer-like) tag would be "Self-Reflexive Shenanigans Drain Needed Anxiety from Tulips, Lemons."