Thursday, September 21, 2017
“All of them, in a way, present me to Tucson,” Gomez said. “It’s like a way of saying, ‘hi, this is me.’”
Tags: Zhang Zuo , Jose Luis Gomez , Beethoven , Mahler , Carreno , TSO , Tucson Symphony Orchestra , classical music
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Know Your Product (Special Blog Edition!)
Stars Pick Their Top 5
This week: Lana Del Rabies
You have to love that name. We suspect even Lana Del Rey loves that name. When Phoenix media artist Sam An decided she wanted to create a solo electronic music project, Lana Del Rabies was born, and with it some of the most unapologetically brutal and almost-unmusical noise imaginable. German industrial and horror scores are likely influences, but it doesn’t matter. This is the stuff of nightmares. Del Rabies/An herself told us about the five albums that changed her life to celebrate the fact that she’s performing at the climax of HOCO…
With Jock Club, Violence and Altrice on Sunday, Sept. 3 at the HoCo aftershow, secret venue. See hotelcongress.com/hoco for more information.
1. Nine Inch Nails—The Downward Spiral
I was 14 the first time I heard The Downward Spiral, and my interests in music were never the same after. The way Trent Reznor uses textures on this record influenced my production work later, and how I view what makes a "great" album- strong individual tracks that collectively execute a concept well.
2. Portishead—Third
I was a teenager when this album came out, and growing up in Tucson during this time, I didn't experience a lot of exposure to electronic music. This was the first Portishead album I heard, and it is still is my favorite of theirs. Third expands beyond the boundaries of "Trip Hop" and uses gritty but minimal production to enhance Beth Gibbons's beautifully melancholy songwriting.
3. Einstürzende Neubauten—Kollaps
I lived in Detroit for four years, and while I was there I was fortunate to help with an event while working at The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, surrounding the history of the Berlin music and art scene in the 1980's/90's. Alexander Hacke of Einstürzende Neubauten and his wife, artist Danielle de Picciotto, were guests at the event who spoke of their projects and experiences. I dove into Neubauten immediately after and was never the same.
4. Giles Corey—Giles Corey
Dan Barrett is a true underground musician, who for me has always expressed what it is like to experience true depression in the most authentic and raw manner possible. His first album as his solo project Giles Corey is an atmospheric journey into an emotional and existential breakdown of the most heightened extremes. Of course I love it.
5. Pharmakon—Abandon
The first time I found out about Pharmakon, a friend was showing me a video of her performing at a gallery somewhere, this was around 2011. For the first time, I saw a woman performing exactly what I felt inside myself and never gave myself a chance to express. Margaret Chardiet is still an innovator in her genre, and it's undeniable that her work empowered me to do Lana Del Rabies in the first place.
Tags: HOCO Fest , Lana Del Rabies , Sam An , Video
Back in 1975, the George Eastman House in Rochester put together the influential New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape exhibition, with photos showing an America scarred by ugly new subdivisions, rotting coal towers and mind-numbing office parks. The pristine landscapes prized by the likes of Ansel Adams were nowhere to be found, and many recoiled at the rebellious photographers’ “radical shift” from beauty. By 2010, when Tucson’s Center for Creative Photography re-created the now-famous show, photo audiences were far more accustomed to photographs that depicted the desecration of the land.
Emilia Mickevicius, a scholar visiting the Center for Creative Photography on a fellowship from the Photographic Arts Council of Los Angeles, will speak at 5 p.m. today about the public’s reaction to the groundbreaking 1975 show. Her lecture, "Photograph/Viewer/Landscape: Revisiting the Reception of New Topographics, 1975," is free and open to the public.
Mickevicius is a doctoral candidate in art history at Brown University, where she’s writing a dissertation on the original New Topographics exhibition. A graduate of the University of Chicago, she’s also held positions at the RISD Museum in Providence and at the Art Institute of Chicago.
For a review of the CCP re-creation of the original exhibition see Tucson Weekly, March 18, 2010
5 p.m. - 6 p.m. today, Tuesday, Aug. 29
Center for Creative Photography Auditorium
1030 N. Olive Rd.
creativephotography.org
Thursday, August 24, 2017
¡Cultura!
Día de los Muertos Opening Reception. Tohono Chul’s next exhibit honors and remembers the dead in a celebration that is full of color and joy. Pieces by local artists will be displayed until the exhibit ends on Nov. 8, and artists whose work is on display will be present at the opening night reception. 5:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 24. 7366 Paseo del Norte. Free.Closing Reception and Sewing Circle. Bordando por la Paz y la Memoria is a group made of citizens from Mexico and other cities abroad who embroider the names of victims of Mexico’s War Against Drug Trafficking onto white handkerchiefs. These stitched stories are a beautiful and sobering visualization of the suffering real people face in the reality of war. Handkerchiefs will be displayed in the café area, and, while supplies last, materials for visitors to embroider their own tributes and testimonies will be provided. 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 27. Joel D. Valdez Main Library 101 N. Stone Ave. Free.
Museums
Space Night 2017. Sleepovers at friends’ houses are fun, but are they educational? Are there opportunities to use state-of-the-art telescopes? Are there real meteorites available to be touched? We didn’t think so. The Children’s Museum Tucson will be showing sleepover guests how to get a party started with pizza, pajamas, binoculars, thermal cameras, and even meteorite-touching ops. Families are welcome to pitch tents in designated areas in the museum and in the main courtyard, for that highly sought after “pitch-a-tent-in-the-living-room-or-backyard-but-still-be-surrounded-by-fascinating-artifacts-and-unique-educational-opportunites” feel that many a sleepover party host has strived for and not attained. 6 p.m. to 9 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 26 to Sunday, Aug. 27. Children's Museum Tucson 200 South Sixth Ave. $50, $45 for museum members.Tags: Dia de los Muertos , Tohono Chul , Bordando por la Paz y la Memoria , Joel. D. Valdez Main Library , handkerchiefs , Pima County Public Library , Space Night 2017 , Children’s Museum Tucson , Sensory Safari by Flashlight , International Wildlife Museum , 3D Printing , Oro Valley Public Library , 3D printing , fuuuuutuuuuure , Foraging Walkabout , John Slattery , foraging , Chinese Calligraphy , A-Long’s Kung Fu Academy , wax on wax off , Indoor Tin-smithing Demo and Craft Activity , Presidio Museum , blacksmiths , blacksmithing , luminary lanterns , William Turner , Composition in the Field , Digital Photo Academy , Reid Park Zoo , photography class , Angel’s Place for Girls Grand Opening , Girl Scouts of Southern Arizona , STEM , rock climbing , just girly things , Bookmans Midtown Block Party , potato salad , barbecue , Silly Tassie , Stories that Soar , The Loft , Free Family Fun Day , bowling , Vantage Bowling Centers , Fall Youth Bowling program , Sixth Annual EFF Spelling Bee at the Rialto Theatre , spelling bee , Curtis Mccrory , Rialto Theater , privilege , privlege , privledge , Akeelah and the Bee , Nintzel and the Bee , Friends Trivia Night , Ross , Rachel , Phoebe , Joey , Chandler , Monica , Gunther , Janice , Crooked Tooth Brewing Company , smelly cat , smelly cat , what are they feeding you , smelly cat , smelly cat , it’s not your fault , Old Folk’s Home Bing , bingo , adrenaline , Kappa’s Bar and Sandwich Place , Pablo Sandoval , Pueblo Lighting Women’s Rugby , The Riveters , 401 Comedy School , Comedy School Showcase , Tucson Improv Movement , Loft Cinema Movie Poster Sale , Andrei Tarkovsky , 2001: A Space Odyssey , cinephile , movie posters , Bench & Brew , do you even lift , The Nerd Gym , animals , dogs , Pets , Gene Hall , Margot Huntington , Marcy Miranda Janes , Contreras Art Gallery , Dog Days of Summer , DockDogs , Old Tucson , dogs , Pelican , Club Congress , worthwhile Metallica , Illinois , strangely aggressive pop , post-punk , Trail of the Dead , Pink Martini , Rufus Wainwright , Centennial Hall , classical , jazz , big-band pop
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
As aural performance artist, Yves Tumor uses repetitive, hypnotic synths and often-distorted clips of the human voice to examine heavy concepts. Like Laurie Anderson or John Cage, dude is more interested in raising questions and making you think than he is in making pretty music. This is post-modern art, yo—stark, confrontational. In “Limerence,” Yves examines context; a woman’s voice clearly states, “Say something.” At first she seems pissed, but when we hear it again, after learning that she wants her boyfriend to “say something” for posterity, the same clip is entirely different. Fucking brilliant. In “When Man Fails You,” the listener is assaulted by endless, atonal bells, and there’s something empty, sadistic yet purposely overwhelming about this tune. Yves’ music is like walking into a museum video installation and taking in dismembered limbs. Open minds and hearts will likely be provoked, shaken and discomforted. Good! So save those psychs for later—but go—this music is profound enough to challenge your assumptions many times over. Plus, he’s gorgeous.
Yves Tumor - Broke in ft. Oxhy from lowlife scum on Vimeo.
Tags: Yves Tumor , HOCO Fest , Laurie Anderson , John Cage , Video
Sunday, August 20, 2017
We here at TW HQ so down with it we'll be doing power previews like tequila shots of bands and artists performing the HOCO Fest, local and international. Here's the cliche-destroying Mexican Institute of Art, a must-see on Friday, September Sept. 1.
Political, whip smart, ironic. Just one of these three adjectives is hard to pull off with musicality, but Mexico City’s Mexican Institute of Sound gano the triple crown. Whether directly addressing the problems in “Mexico,” where violence and corruption has citizens “saber que el tuyo no es tuyo,” (knowing what is yours is not yours) or playing against Latin-lover stereotypes, “Escribeme Pronto. Soy pasionante, pero yo no soy tanto” (Write me soon. I am passionate but I am not stupid), the singsong/rapped lyrics are always on point—witty and aware of US and Mexican cultural shortcomings. But it’s not just the lyrics in this post-Beck hip-hop outfit that succeed. On “Mexico,” traditional, heroic-sounding horns are slowed down to be clownish; turning a cultural touchstone on its head. In “Escribeme Pronto,” sped up mandates to “Dance!” are dropped in above ’50s Mexico-by-way-of-Hollywood orchestration. This is parody at its finest—razor sharp, danceable, fun. Like Ozomatli, this banda just gets better live. All hail group leader Camilo Lara! Not to be missed.
Tags: Camilo Lara , Mexican Institute of Sound , HOCO Fest , Video
Monday, August 14, 2017
Know Your Product: The Head
Straight outta Atlanta, Georgia, The Head formed a decade ago when twins Jack (drums) and Mike (vocals/bass) Shaw took their love for The Beatles, as well as The Stone Roses and the cynically witty Madchester scene, and created something rooted in garage nostalgia yet ultimately contemporary. Packed with big rock choruses and killer fret-work courtesy of guitarist Jacob Morrell, the band’s recent Millipedes EP shows just how much they’ve grown into themselves over the past 10 years. They hit Tucson tonight, so the trio told us their collective picks for the five albums that shaped The Head…
Monday, August 14 at The Flycatcher, 340 E. 6th St.
1. Echo & the Bunnymen – Ocean Rain
The whole album feels like you're listening to a concert hall performance. It's such a big-sounding record that feels intimate. The overall record is sexy and spooky at the same time.
2. Scott Walker – Scott IV
Because without this record, Ocean Rain wouldn't exist.
3. REM - Murmur
This record was a big statement. It came out at time when albums like Thriller (Michael Jackson) and She's So Unusual (Cyndi Lauper) were floating around the airwaves. Murmur was its own beast and defied everything else around it at the time. It taught us to embrace the lead vocal as an instrument.
4. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses
Everything about this record just gives us chills — the textures, the guitars, the vocal melodies. It's a very layered, polished sounding record that still has edge and grit.
5. The Beatles – Rubber Soul
Words can't describe the impact Rubber Soul has had on us. It's a powerhouse of a record that redefined how every subsequent band should make a record.
Sunday, Aug. 13: We were late. Ten minutes behind the hundreds of marchers, and a four-year-old in tow. The photographer offered us a shaded seat until they circled back. But this was no time to sit still. Hate and intolerance had once more surfaced on a national level at the Charlottesville, Virginia white nationalist march. We paused to remove a rock from my son's shoe, and that's when we met Faith. She is pregnant and tired. But it feels too isolating and helpless to stay at home today. We stop for water and a hug at one of three aid stations along the route. All this organization in less than a day—no sirens, no helicopters. Then we hear the chant, "Through love, not hate, let's make America great." Black and gay, Mexican and Muslim, all were walking in unison.
As we passed frat row, six white guys hung together jeering, "Blue Lives Matter." An angry student paused to take their picture. "So that's what privilege looks like," he yells back. Then the black man beside me lays a hand on the marcher's shoulder, "They've just never had something bad happen in their lives yet." A woman up front starts to sing, "And you will know that we are family by our love, by our love." When we hit the 4th Avenue tunnel, our collective voice resounds through the streets. "And you will know that we are family by our love."
Friday, August 11, 2017
Inimitable punk rocker Bob Spasm, frontman for the riotous Blood Spasm—once hailed by the local press as Tucson’s biggest punk rock band—died on Aug. 9 after a struggle with multiple sclerosis.
Renowned for his on-stage histrionics, Bob “Spasm” McKinley formed Blood Spasm in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 1983. A revised version of the band was a staple on Tucson’s punk scene, playing notorious shows mostly at house parties, warehouses and some local watering holes, from ‘85 until 1992. Even after disbanding, Blood Spasm continued to reunite and play semiannually at SpasmFest.
Blood Spasm released one album, which included the hardcore earworm, "We Got Cactus." McKinley told New Times in an interview (from Feb. 2012) that “he wrote the lyrics in about five minutes over a pitcher of beer at the Bay Horse Tavern.”
Spyder Rhodes (longtime Tucson DJ/musician) said, “For a local punk band, it was a hit.” Cowpunk legend Al Perry, who covered the song on his 2004 album Always a Pleasure, considers McKinley’s song to be the alpha and omega of songs that perfectly depicts life in Tucson.
Rhodes says, “Blood Spasm and my band [The Host] used to play together quite a bit. They were amazing to see live. Bob was a real nice guy, with an enormous personality and well-loved in the punk community.”
Outspoken, with punk ‘tude, McKinley stayed true to the playbook he embraced in his youth. “Playing punk rock in Tucson 20 years ago meant living the lifestyle, and sometimes paying the price for doing so. Today, punk rock is pretty much a safe thing. There's no penalty for being a punk rocker. You don't have to walk down the street and fear getting jumped and beat up all the time."
But behind the sneer and rapid-fire delivery in his performances, there was humor, gentleness and love of home. as evidenced in this excerpt from McKinley’s lyrics for “We Got Cactus”:
Spring without flowers is just as remorseful/Bob “Spasm” McKinley was 57.
As an autumn denied the colored leaves fall/
Long is the winter when there's no snow/
And summer is painful when the wind won't blow/
Welcome to my home, no fear of pneumonia/
This is paradise, in Tucson, Arizona.
Al Perry's cover of Blood Spasm's "We Got Cactus":
Tags: Al Perry , Blood Spasm , Bob McKinley , Video
“It's a collective project featuring numerous women and female-identifying people from the downtown community with the goal of elevating our voices, art and experiences," Ragan, who is also the mag's editor, says. "This first release revolves around sexual harassment and assault, personal experience and otherwise, largely in response to recent discoveries about abuse from certain male members of the community.”
The short-run zine—available at Wooden Tooth Records—is a work in progress with hopes of evolving into a quarterly.
WTF AF is, you'll note, a monthly series, staged at Hotel Congress, designed to create a platform for our women/trans/femme community’s voice to be heard.
Ragan adds, “While all are encouraged to attend these events, they are specifically open to queer, POC and handi-capable female-identifying folks.”
A party was held, this past Sunday, Aug 6, to mark the launch of Not Just A Pretty Face at Club Congress with live performances by:
Cool Funeral
Funeral services are generally somber affairs. Yet Cool Funeral’s wistful shoegaze had enough light and punch to surpass boundaries of what's "normal" at a funeral. Besides, WTF AF’s audience were smitten, welcoming these newcomers to the Tucson music scene with cheers and yelps.
Chezale
A gemstone whose mutable facets reflect an underlying symmetry—singer, songwriter, emcee, model, actress, dance instructor—Chezale personified the spirit of the event.
With a message of self-love and empowerment, Chezale’s “Our World,” which borrows from James Brown’s '66 classic “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World” (a ditty Rolling Stone called “biblically chauvinistic”) into a modern day call for respect and unity between sexes.
Chezale’s delivery and lyrics exude grace and strength inherent in the female universe, and she raps truth to power: “They say we’re living in a man’s world/But I guarantee one thing/That it’s nothing without a woman ... When your life is a mess/Like chess/The queen will protect.”
The message is simple: “Both worlds must unify in order to elevate.”
Chezale’s latest, Mavmuzik, is available on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play and Spotify.
Julia Kinu
A last-minute addition to the event, Julia Kinu (writer and head editor at Words on the Avenue) recited a poem, sang and performed a couple of numbers on mandolin.
One of Kinu’s thought-provokers, “Day After/Days After,” appears in Not Just A Pretty Face: Vol 1.
Fawn Bones
Sweet and gentle, singer-songwriter Fawn Bones has the voice of an angel. Her understated musical grace slowly weaved a sonic web that ensnared; a slide and violin-bowed guitar built up layer upon layer of sound on a loop, as she carefully plucked delicate melodic riffs from a Telecaster over the top. The bluesy folk artist delivered an impactful set of experimental songs that created vivid dreamscapes.
Shovel
Dusty Rose, Shovel’s vocalist-guitarist, greeted a stoked audience (who stood at the stage in anticipation of their set) with, “Were gonna rock ‘n’ roll a little bit,” before she and stickman Ward Reeder, also known as “Phoenix’s Keith Moon,” commenced to do just that.
Referencing Sub Pop grunge, this Vally of the Sun duo laid down thick slabs of garage/noise/punk with elements of heavy metal, without all of the H.P. Lovecraftian occult mysticism. In the tradition of great one-name bands, like Hole, their big sound belies smallness.
Head-banging and long hair flailing wildly, Shovel rocked Congress hard. At the climax of their set, Rose unstrapped her guitar, thrashed it about, bouncing it off the stage floor repeatedly before falling to her knees to coax unearthly sounds from it by hammering fists on the strings and tweaking knobs before leaving it to feedback in front of her amplifier, in force, bringing WTF AF to a raucous close.
Tags: Shovel , Fawn Bones , Cool Funeral , Julia Kinu , Chezale , Molly Ragan , WTF AF , Not Just a Pretty Face
