I’ve been a bit…haunted the past few nights. I should change that, I guess, to say that I’ve been a bit haunted these past few LATE nights. My evenings have consisted of ferrying Tums to my about-to-be-baby-momma and partaking in hideous amounts of nesting. We’re talking, ahem, lamps, dude. At some point in the recent (and weird) past, soft lighting became a priority in the Hateball Household, and only now am I realizing that I am complicit in this endeavor. Very weird.

But. Late at night. Once I’ve watched a disc of the Office or 30 Rock, mussed around with photoshopping whatever it is I’m photoshopping for this week’s List, and sent all the emails I was supposed to send earlier that day, I’ve been sneaking out into the living room and flipping on the Netflix.

And, what have I been watching for the past 3 nights straight? Well, Exit Through the Gift Shop, of course. My Liege Caffeindorus alerted me to it’s presence on Netflix Instant Watch a few days ago, and, well, I rushed home to watch it. Which is weird, because I don’t really find myself watching movies all that often. I had been wanting to see what all the buzz was about with this flick for a while—well, since folks posted about it here earlier in the year—and I have to say that I wasn’t disappointed.

My disconnection from Banksy is well-documented here. So much so that I felt it appropriate to, ahem, *purposely* misspell his name repeatedly in a post I made about him a few months ago. Is it a typo if you do it wrong consistently? (that’s what she said.) Anyway…I don’t know much, but what I did know—before seeing this film—I was noncommittal about. It was just, whatever.

Banksy

And that’s not because I’m not an art person…it’s one of my (many) things. There are several contemporary art ‘scenes’ and artists that I feel like I can hold my own about; at least in a casual-discourse sort of way. I haven’t really chased anybody down and made a life’s work from collecting so-and-so, but I can certainly put myself in a place where I can understand street art in the context of the rest of the world. Which is why it was so baffling to me to not really ‘get’ or even ‘be aware’ of the bulk of Banksy’s import before starting to talk about him here.

But then I watched this movie. A few times. In a row. And I feel different now. The strangest thing of all is that I still don’t know HOW I feel about Banksy, but I do know I feel different than I did.

I’ll suspend the whole conversation of whether or not the characters and/or events in this movie are or are not staged. I have to assume it’s the genuine thing. And when I assume that, I am immediately struck by how human Banksy seems. Just a regular, funny, ironic, sarcastic dude. It’s weird—no?—to fucking WANT to listen to a shrouded Dr. Claw talk and recount moments from his life. The parts with him just sitting there and talking are, for me, the best, because you realize that this is just some dude who gets up on people. Not really a caricature like a Warhol or Dali; (at least, not in the same way…I DID just flip open my computerbook and call him Dr. Claw) just a dude ‘making art’. I am charmed…even if I don’t think rat stencils are the coolest thing in the world.

Banksy

And then I started paying attention to all the shit that’s swept up under the rug in this movie—and with ‘bigtime’ ‘conceptual’ artists in the larger sense: when do we talk about this huge studio space that he already had from way before it became, quote, ‘all about the money?’ Fucking crane trucks. Phonebooth operations. Elephant rental. Weapons-grade counterfeit currency.

Right? Am I the only one wanting to connect some of those dots? Forget about Thierry and MBW and all that (way bullshit); I want to know more about how Banksy rose to his now-prominent and godlike state. Not because I am indicting him in the court of public celebrity. But because I am charmed.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m stating the obvious, in classic me-steeze. Which is why, if that was all I had to say, I probably wouldn’t be saying it here. But! I wanted to make a recommendation, and I felt like this (the above) was the proper way in which to do that. Plus, let’s be honest, it gave me mad column-inches within which to share rad photos of rad art. Deallionaire. ( <- I think that was supposed to be in like a ‘deal with THAT, playa! sort of way. Still not sure.)

The first night I watched Exit Through the Gift Shop, it was at the beginning of a particularly trying night of insomniac olympics. Shit was mad awful. BUT! Once I got through that first flick and went for my second bowl of Corn Pops, and after an aborted attempt at Uwe Boll’s terrible Rampage, I stumbled onto another art-documentary called Beautiful Losers which, as it turns out, was beautiful.

Beautiful Losers is a few things. First, it’s a bit of a brief retrospective and/or primer on the history of Aaron Rose’s earth-shattering gallery space in New York (Alleged). According to the film (and actual life, sure) much of what we all consider as modern Street-slash-DIY Art-ish stuff can trace beginnings, crossed paths, and personal connections back to this gallery. In addition to telling the story of the gallery itself, the film spends time with some heavy hitters, all of whom have personal and professional connections with Alleged.

Shepard Fairey

Interestingly enough, the only person who appears in both of the films I’m talking about here—Exit Through the Gift Shop and Beautiful Losers—is Shepard Fairey. His role in Losers is much smaller than in Gift Shop but there was something about watching these movies back to back that made his omnipresence sort of poignant for me. Only sort of.

More interesting (to me, at least) is the actual/factual inclusion of some of my favorite artists of all time. Significant amounts of time are spent with Stephen Powers (ESPO), Geoff McFetridge, Ed Templeton, Thomas Campbell, Margaret Kilgallen, and of course, the original original, Barry McGee.

Barry McGee

If you know who any of those folks are—or if you’re a fan of Kids or Gummo [O yeah, time is also spent with Harmony Korine]—please check this movie out. If you can, watch these two movies back-to-back, like I did (by accident).

I don’t know. Something about these two movies really, for me, has been—like I said before—haunting. There’s sadness and loss and absurdity and rise-fall-Scorsese dynamism in both, and I think that, taken as a whole they really do a great job of summing up ‘our’ art and providing a context for someone who’d not already be familiar with some of these things.

Stephen Powers (ESPO)

These are the kinds of movies I look forward to watching with my boy someday. Really fun, really real documents that try and fail but still try to describe both what art is and isn’t.

I know I’m sort of babbling. And I know the whole premise for this post is thin, at best: plenty has been written by all of us about the Banksy thing. Bottom line, if you haven’t seen either of these movies, check ‘em out. They’re on Netflix. Probably steer clear of Rampage, too.

And that’s three to grow on.

PS: For Crook and Mars. The comment thread belonging to this article originally reviewing Gift Shop is a pretty interesting read. Crook, being his normal, detail-oriented self, attaches himself to a comment Banksy makes in Gift Shop about never having seen anything like Life Remote Control before. His (Crook’s) contention is that there are plenty of mainstream, frenetic examples of that sort of editing style, and it’s hard to believe that someone as savvy as Banksy would never have seen something like that before then.

The thread goes on to discuss the merits of that style, etc. When I first saw that part of the movie, I, too, recognized the style instantly, but had some trouble placing it. And then it hit me (this is the part for Mars): It’s some straight-up Welcome to the World of Dino Velvet shit. All things always and forever always come back to the Cage, son. The Cage.

This is it people, tomorrow is your final day to snag some Мишка wears for dirt cheap. So all of you last minute shoppers get your ass over to Brooklyn and grab something for your family, a friend or even just to treat yourself. There are still loads of treasures to be had at a bargain so all of you getting into town this week won’t be leaving disappointed. Prices are still slashed 50-70% off retail and if you dig deep enough you’ll not only find one of a kind samples that never made it to production from seasons past, but samples of seasons future!

The sale will be open the same hours as our Brooklyn shop and it’s conveniently located right next door to it!

Мишка Warehouse Sale
352 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY

J/M/Z to Marcy Ave
L to Lorimer
G to Broadway

OFF! – First Four EPs (2010) [Vice] // Grade: A

Listening to how hard Keith Morris goes on the entirety of First Four EPs makes me less afraid to grow old. The dude, and when I say dude I mean founding member of Black Flag and Circle Jerks and all around hardcore music godhead, may be well on the wrong side of 50, but no one seems to have told him.

OFF!, Morris’ new band with (deep breath) Burning Brides guitarist Dimitri Coats, Redd Kross bassist Steven McDonald, and Mario Rubalcaba, drummer from Rocket From The Crypt, kicks fucking ass. Do I hesitate to use the word supergroup? Yes, I do, because that implies some sort of victory lap type situation, a band that exists solely because all the members are famous. OFF! instead sounds like a brand new band that was always meant to play together.

For their first big release (coming in at a blistering 17 minutes) OFF! just released a collection of their EPs on Vice’s in-house label. Opening salvo Black Thoughts, coming in at an actually-sort-of-long-for-this-album one minute, starts with Keith Morris lamenting (or, perhaps more likely celebrating) that he “can’t stop/ thinking black thoughts!” I guess he really can’t. There’s not an ounce of lackadaisical pretend play going on here, not even a hint that any of this bloody aggression has to be put on at all.

Morris still maintains his venomous youthful bite, talking about “pissing in the punch bowl” on I Don’t Belong. I worried perhaps that he was going to have gotten more mature, too mature. But instead of age at all affecting his style, it’s instead just made him really really fucking great at it. Same goes for the rest of the band.

The whole thing is just tight as hell, with literally not a single second wasted. Mario Rubalcaba especially beats the shit out of his drum kit, holding together all the writhing ephemeral energy. Even the cover art by Raymond Pettibon rules. I may not have seen it coming, but I have no problem saying that Keith Morris has now founded the third great band of his career.

The triangle has been a pretty steady element across the entire Witch House scene and I’ll be damned if this song from †‡† (Ritualzzz) isn’t a love song befitting it’s clandestine ideology. From the ghostly vocals, beats beats decapitating as they hover well into the red down to the use of Heath’s “USA Boys” as a backing sample… in just over three short minutes †‡† (Ritualzzz) manages to capture the past, present and one of a million possible futures for Witch House.

It’s kind of odd to call someone a new force in  scene that’s barely a year old but that’s exactly what †‡† (Ritualzzz) has done. A couple of soundcloud tracks and a mix all of a sudden spurned not only one of this year’s best EPs but a fucking statement to the fact that †‡† (Ritualzzz) isn’t merely one of countless Witch House acts readily forming in the wake of groups like Salem and Mater Suspiria Vision… but an artist capable of dragging Witch House by it’s hooves into whatever direction he sees fit.

Simon Cable Knit Cardigan ($142.00)

Look at those thick cables on that sweater, all braided and ropey.  Remember that Weezer song? “If you want to destroy my sweater, whoa-oh-oh, I’ll slit your throat, so just back away (just back awaaaaaaaaay).” Just look at how nice this thing is. JUST. LOOK. So good. You put this thing and you know what you’ll look like?  A college professor/undertaker whose got a monster skull on his chest? Yes. “Oh hello you intelligent college bitches. I’m Reginald, all well groomed but also down with monster skulls.  How do you do? Want to go read some books and fuck?” That is the message that this cardigan projects. My love of cable knit sweaters has led me to try to understand how they are made but every time I try to read about knitting I get bored.

The cardigan is made of acrylic and features a chenille Cyco Simon applique on the chest. Get yours now if you want to look smart and dangerous.

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725
—
Мишка LA
1547 Echo Park Ave
Los Angeles, CA
213-536-4234

Black Math – Phantom Power (2010) [Permanent] // Grade: B+

A year following the release of their debut LP, Chicago’s Black Math continue to hide behind hiss and fog. Pressing limited runs of everything they’ve ever released, they are the kind of band that seem content in the underground. Their talent has not gone without notice though, and they’ve developed the kind of local following that causes fans to offer as much as $120 for copies of their sold out debut. Black Math’s reach is modest, but anticipation for their sophomore LP, Phantom Power, was great.

Fuzzy textures dance in the dark across ten tracks that reel between gray-hued pop, morose droning and bouts of frustrated aggression. The two best tracks off the band’s Counterfeit Realities EP, “Bottomless Sea” and “Part Of Me” find new life as part of a larger tapestry of ambling creepiness. Like “Part Of Me”, opener “Reckless Thoughts” buries pristine pop melody under a blanket of ice. These are the same type of song structures that The Cure were able to use to such great affect, a tone of sadness carried by hooks.

Black Math fall deeper into darkness on “High Dive” and “In Threes”. Both move in slow, transfixing circles, dirges carried by sinking vocals. Electric cello and guitar pulse forebodingly, offering a warning to proceed with caution. The shortest and sparsest of Phantom Power‘s tracks, “Nightshade”, is also the most unsettling moment on the album. A door creaks, and cello plucks and wails in an atmospheric soundtrack fit for a horror film. Ending with a pounding cover of the Anals’ “Commando of Love”, Phantom Power favors subtle details and Black Math excel at creating them.

Terrible title, right? Well, it doesn’t get much better from here.

Me and the Night Slugs decided to strike out on a crisp winter’s evening and take some night shots of some of the houses within my immediate kill zone. My blast radius, if you will. I don’t know what it is about Christmas lights: I at once love the hell out of them but am too ‘smart’ to actually put them on my own house.

Something about the futility of having to really take a good half-a-Saturday at the beginning of December to put them up, and then take another good half-a-Sunday sometime around January 5th to take them down seems….futile to me. That said, I am more than happy to grade the efforts of others, and I am surprisingly (to me, at least) picky about my taste in lights.

Is it just too goddamn obvious that I’m the old guy here, as I bitch about the trials and travails of holiday decorating pressure? I both hope for and against that phenomenon.

Watch, now, as I grade these poor bastards on their illumaesthetic like so many starlets vying for the leathery batwinged style-assassins at US Weekly.

Too blue. LEDs are for flashlights, not merry lights. Please correct this problem ASAP.

Your path lights are ruining the overall effect. C+.

Very very pleasant. The color spots are a nice touch. Kudos to you, sir or madam.

Thank you for making me feel like I live on Angela’s street from My So Called Life. I really mean that. The Bug is a nice touch as well. What’s for dinner?

This, to me, looks like it belongs inside a snowglobe. Bravo to you.

I don’t buy it. But you did.

(more…)

In today’s media currency, copy is the ultimate value. Bitrate and resolution are the deciding factor in the worth of any given object. Duplication has become ritual.

Our remix culture was birthed from the blogs.  An endless swamp of snapshots containing the audio/visual stimulation that shapes and defines us.  As we click and download, it is too easy to shift from the rare dark obscurities of Mutant Sounds to the highlife grooves of Afro Slabs in mere moments.  As a result, our music is fractured with influence.  This invasion of stimulus wreaks synaptical chaos.  This is probably why, as a genre, this Grave Wave fails to find a voice.

What we do have is common ground. Regardless of any artists particular style it is there. Early industrial and old Italo disco fused with the tape aesthetics of  DJ Screw and the Memphis Underground.  We delight in the joysongs of Charlie and his Girls as we dream about what is was like to dance at the Batcave.

Everything lies in how we arrange these tangrams. The power lies in translation. Our sounds are neuro-tarot, the deck designed by our collective’s hive mind.

I was considering a running feature wherein artists remix songs that have moved them when I stumbled across Felis Demens’ drag mix of Joy Division. Devilishly simple, the song seems to emit dread at this leaden tempo. Nearly single channel (there are a few added drum sounds) everything you hear is extracted from the original recording. This is the essence of Screw. But wait, coincidentally (?)… Mater Suspiria Vision side project twYlY▲ght ►ZoNe then goes and drops their own take on the Joy Division classic just a few days ago!  Taking the original track to Paul Stretch dimensions, their ghost drone borders on demon drag.

It all seems to fit. As demos of Warsaw reveal, JD’s cold, hollow sound comes from Martin Hannett’s production.  Live they were almost just another punk band.  Essentially, it is about the copy.

It is always about the copy.

The hottest car I’ve ever driven on a regular basis was a stock Dodge Neon, and the last time I smoked weed Bill Clinton was in office. Needless to say, I don’t entirely relate to the experience of pushing a classic car with candy paint while blazed out of my face. However, when you get a chill ass beat and some good rappers relating becomes irrelevant because you get transported into experiences you’ve never had on some Being John Malkovich shit.

Big K.R.I.T. gets on his smooth talking, sounding equal parts Pimp C and Wiz Khalifa while Killa Kyleon raps with the hunger of a dude trying to emerge from being in the shadow of an irrelevant rapper (what up Slim Thugg?). Curren$y, batting clean up, steals the show by rapping about astronomy and eye fucking your sister. Lines like that serve as a link back to a familiar reality that keeps us from getting entirely lost in this southern rap dream – kind of like Leo’s spinning top in Inception.

All Good Things is the first feature-length in seven years from Andrew Jarecki, the man behind the celebrated 2003 documentary Capturing the Friedmans and the multimillionaire CEO of Moviefone. Jarecki again takes the true crime route with All Good Things, this time targeting the bizarre case of millionaire, cross-dressing murderer Robert Durst and giving it the star treatment with Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst. He changes the names of the real life players, but doesn’t to sensationalizing or twisting the already bizarre facts.

A lot of critics are saying that All Good Things has no suspense and no emotion. That although the acting is top-notch it fails to create any suspense or tension for a movie billed as a “crime thriller.” All of these reasons are why I loved it. Durst, whose  name is changed to David Marks in the film, is a man without a conscious. He’s a pod person incapable of feeling love. But, although he may have killed three people, he’s not a sadist. Murder doesn’t get him off. Nothing does — that’s the point. And he’s not charming in any way. We’re not supposed to like being around him. This isn’t Dexter.

The facts: Robert Durst is the son of late NYC real estate mogul Seymour Durst, the man who owned about half of Manhattan in the ’70s and ’80s. At age seven Robert witnessed his mother commit suicide and this may have ignited schizophrenia. Robert’s wife Kathleen came from more humble roots but Robert didn’t care and they were happily married. Then Kathleen went missing in 1982 and has never been found. In 2000, Robert’s close friend, Susan, was murdered execution-style. In 2001, Robert killed his elderly neighbor. He was hiding out in Galveston, Texas at the time, posing as a mute woman. He dismembered the body with a hacksaw and threw the pieces in Galveston Bay. The man’s head was never found.

Fugitive status was thrown upon him and he was caught while trying to steal a chicken sandwich from a supermarket. He had $500 in his pocket. In his car was $37,000, weed, two guns, and his neighbor’s driver’s license.

He pleaded that he killed his neighbor in self-defense and was acquitted. I guess they didn’t have issues with him sawing the old man up and chucking his pieces in the bay. Way to go, Texas. He was picked up in 2004 for two counts of bond jumping and was paroled in 2005.

Gosling is so scary as Durst it’s not even funny. In certain scenes he utters maybe one sentence and it’s more effective than what passes for horror nowadays. Frank Langella is incredibly convincing and slimy as his hard-ass father. But it’s Kirsten Dunst who surprisingly acts all these fools under the table. She runs the gauntlet of emotions and proves she’s can throw down for real. She’s been on Sofia Coppola’s and Spider Man’s teet for so long that this realistic crime film — free of cheese — is a perfect choice to flex her acting chops. Hell yeah, Dunst.

Not only will I argue that the reasons people hated this movie are what makes it amazing, I’ll also argue that anyone who says this movie lacks emotion must have slept through Dunt’s performance. Dunst’s portrayal of a woman trapped amongst sociopaths is more intense than any fictionalized crime film in recent memory. And to think that Robert Durst is a free man as you read this…