Monday, 12 August 2019

Loulou Picasso

These have recently been posted on Loulou's Facebook page and he did tell me the other day that there will be a book of this recent work to be published in November

Anyone want to lend me (AUS) $21,011.13?

Keith Haring . . . actually got down on his knees because of my height and drew this [light bulb character]. I could feel him etching against my back. This is not an image that you see replicated if you were to look at [Haring's] body of work, so it really speaks to his improvisation and the spirit of where we were at that particular time on that night.

- Joy Bouldin.

Marker pen and ink on a black leather jacket (1984)

An exceptional collaboration artwork. Keith Haring contributes three drawings, a dark green figure diving head first from the right lapel, a dark green snake on the left lapel and a larger light green dancing lightbulb man to the jacket back; Futura adds a large old school tag above Haring in white on the back, a spraycan character drawing underneath Haring on the right lapel, and the scribble tag in green on the left lapel; Fab 5 Freddy takes the left arm in green and dates his tag 1984; Cey (see also this) draws a stylish "C" outline in silver, dated 1984 to the back and tags in silver on the left lapel; Kano (who went on to be one of the most influential A&R representatives in hip hop, working for Tommy Boy, Elektra and Warner) draws a character and tags "Kano love" & "Fresh Kidd" in silver on the back of the right sleeve; Stash contributes several drawings to the back in green including a character and TV screen, also a "destiny" (DestroyEverySubwayTrainInNewYork) outline in green to the bottom left front and possibly the "joystick" outline in pink and green above (although this has futura-esque highlights and elements); Energy (NRG) and Africa131 (Cmor / Afrochild) also tag. There is a silver full body character underneath the front lapel and a couple of other tags that as yet we are unable to attribute. An exceptional artwork bringing together the elite movers and shakers of the 1980s art and club scene. This was Joy's favourite jacket and the one she considered the most important. Provenance: Joy "Joystick" Bouldin. Joy was a key figure in the New York club scene of the early 1980s. Aged 18, she arrived in New York and, eschewing her plans to go to college, found work at the Mudd Club. Here she was befriended by Andy Warhol, who introduced her to his inner circle, including Jean-Michel Basquiat (for whom she modelled) and Keith Haring. In 1982 she quit her job in a law firm to "work the elevator" at Danceteria. Deciding who to let in to the private club gave her a key position at the forefront of the emerging culture of the time, positioned at the intersection between fashion, Pop Art, Hip Hop and graffiti. Like key door-people everywhere, Joy knew everyone and everyone knew her. She came up with the idea of having the best known and most applauded graffiti writers, pop artists and musicians tag or draw on her clothing as they came in and out of the club. In doing so she created a wearable original artwork merging fashion, art and music that now also serves as a significant historical document

For sale

HERE
Actually I only need to borrow 20,593.28 Australian dollars!

Sunday, 11 August 2019

Everybody in the Place: an Incomplete History of Britain 1984 - 1992

Acid house is often portrayed as a movement that came out of the blue, inspired by little more than a handful of London-based DJs discovering ecstasy on a 1987 holiday to Ibiza. In truth, the explosion of acid house and rave in the UK was a reaction to a much wider and deeper set of fault lines in British culture, stretching from the heart of the city to the furthest reaches of the countryside, cutting across previously impregnable boundaries of class, identity and geography.
With Everybody in the Place, the Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller upturns popular notions of rave and acid house, situating them at the very centre of the seismic social changes that reshaped 1980s Britain. Rare and unseen archive materials map the journey from protest movements to abandoned warehouse raves, the white heat of industry bleeding into the chaotic release of the dancefloor.
We join an A-level politics class as they discover these stories for the first time, viewing the story of acid house from the perspective of a generation for whom it is already ancient history. We see how rave culture owes as much to the Battle of Orgreave and the underground gay clubs of Chicago as it does to shifts in musical style: not merely a cultural gesture, but the fulcrum for a generational shift in British identity, linking industrial histories and radical action to the wider expanses of a post-industrial future.

Wednesday, 10 April 2019

Damo Suzuki - Live @ Laugharne Festival 2019

Improv 1

Improv 2
Featuring Damo Suzuki, Julian Hayman, Euros Childs, Richard James, Ed Mugford and Stephen Morris

Thursday, 4 April 2019

A Certain Ratio - Houses In Motion

A cover version of Talking Heads’ ‘Houses In Motion’, using Jez Kerr’s guide vocals (pre to him becoming the band’s singer). Grace Jones never completed her vocal take, after attending one of the recording sessions with the band.

Friday, 15 March 2019

Roots Manuva & Doug Wimbish - Spit Bits

Via

Thursday, 14 March 2019

Curtis Mayfield by Jason Heller

Curtis Mayfield’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Curtis Mayfield - Beat Club, Bremen, West Germany, January 19, 1972 Part 1/2
Via

Back in London in the early eighties I had a friend who put a funk band together called 'Work Party' and I went to see their debut gig at Covent Garden's Rockgarden. They were really good and a short while later when I was working at Dingwalls in Camden it was announced that Curtis Mayfield was to play and I managed to wangle my friend's band the support slot. Somewhere I may have still have recordings of those two gigs, I certainly do still have their first demo tape in storage. A great wee combo who I believe had another demo produced by Fritz Skidoo. Interestingly enough Fritz has no memory of this but I am sure that my friend, gerry Murphy, told me this just before I moved to Australia in 86

Talk Talk - Eden (Rehearsal Cassette)

A late-stage rehearsal straight to cassette for reference. Recorded shortly before going into the studio, probably at John Henry rehearsal rooms. This is Mark on guitar, Lee on drums, and myself on piano and organ (the bass was always addressed in the studio once the basic track was down, which is why it doesn't feature here).
It's best to take the 8 minutes out and listen to the end, preferably in headphones, and in a quiet space
Thanks Stan