Red Chuck

Giant Killer

OK. Screw the behemoth (see previous entry). Based on this review, maybe I should get one of these.

The LaGrange Turntable

Lately I've been wanting to listen to some LPs at home. Unfortunatley, my turntable is kaput. In searching for record players online I came upon this behemoth. Wow.

Hikers

Joey Arkenstat

From the looks and attitude of the Joey Arkenstat Mean Page, you'd think this guy is just another grumpy-old-fouled-mouthed-picnic-shirted-chaw-in-the-craw-hey-lets-have-one-more-round-honky-tanked singer. But wait a sec, he's promoting a solo bass album? Who the hell is Joey Arkenstat? And what does playing the bass have to do with the game checkers?

Conceptual Art Attack

Here's that story about the conceptual artists/pirates and the Robert Smithson piece/island.

If I tagged, my tags would be:

pirates, boat stalking, East River, 150 tons of conceptual art

Omnivisu

Check out Omnivisu, a design project in which people's eye movements are recorded and projected onto the side of a building in Berlin.

I heart conceptual art.

New Paintings

Busy busy here these days. Almost forgot to mention that my bro is showing new work this month at his gallery in Athens, Mercury Art Works. Wish we could have made the opening last Friday.

Shortie

My favorite music blogger, largehearted boy, put included the Boondogs in his shorties today.

Ben Harris Benefit Recap

So the Ben Harris Benefit was fun. Meshugga was great. How often do you get the chance to hear klezmer music at White Water Tavern?

And even though Greg and Chris's version of "Lets Get It On" was fantastic, the highlight of the night had to be the cover of this amusing song.

Hats off to Odie Blackmon.

And Greg Spradlin.

After the Goldrush Went Bust

The Memphis Flyer dishes out the goods on us Boondogs here.

As Williams pointed out, too bad they didn't plug our gig at the P & H Cafe this Saturday.

Its a well written article nonetheless. Thank you Werner.

Ben Harris Benefit

Ben Harris is a local jazz guitarist who moved to New Orleans about 2 weeks before Katrina moved in. From what I've heard, Ben and his wife lost everything in their new apartment. Lots of people still need help in this crisis. Here's an instance of local musicians turning out to help one of their own. Tonight, White Water Tavern hosts a benefit for Ben.

9:00 - 9:20 Kevin Kerby
9:30 - 9:50 Sideshow
10:00 - 10:20 Meshugga
10:30 - 10:50 Greg Spradlin
11:00 - 11:20 Lagniappe
11:30 - 11:50 Sara Thomas
12:00 - 12:20 Boondogs

Lucas Shaw Blakley Radcliffe

Thursday, September 15 at 12:31 a.m., weighing 9 lbs. 10 oz.

3 Music Videos

"I'm a Little Teapot"

"Gus the Goat"

"Gus the Teapot" (acapella mashup)

It Makes For My Billionaire Status

Phoebe's other exhibit, "It Makes For My Billionaire Status," opens today in the Kantor / Feuer Gallery in Los Angeles. How does she do it? 2 exhibits in the same month! I can barely get 2 shoes tied in the morning. Anyway, they've posted a nice picture gallery on their website of recent work from 2005. When you have a chance, check out the shots from "Heavy as Debt."

Walter Anderson Museum

Thankfully the Walter Anderson Museum survived Hurricane Katrina with only minor damages.

From their website:

September 12 - The Museum sustained no major structural damage and there was no water intrusion. While we have not yet done a full assessment of the building and grounds, things look good overall. In preparation for the storm, the staff moved the entire collection into the Museum's interior vault and there was no damage to the art. Some small roof leaks and air conditioning system problems are being investigated. Despite damage to their own homes, museum staff members have been on the job and working with the family of Walter Anderson to preserve family-owned works that were damaged during the storm. Conservation work is also being done on the Museum's collection of linoleum blocks that were stored in a remote facility that was flooded.

We will resume normal operations as soon as possible, perhaps within one month...

Wordcast

Have you tried Wordcasting yet? Man. Its even cooler than Podcasting. Instead of downloading music files to your iTunes, it downloads text files directly into your memory. Try it out here.

Art Critic

I've been writing about art a lot today.

Hammer Opening

Just a quick note to mention that my cousin Phoebe Washburn has a show opening today at UCLA's Hammer Museum. Entitled It Has No Secret Surprise, Phoebe's installation is another amazing meditation on the ideas of recycling, refuse, and architecture.

Last year I got to see Phoebe's solo show at the Weatherspoon Art Museum. I was totally blown away. Her installation was Richard Serra scaled, large and imposing. This particular show had a gyre-like quality. You walked around and then down and under a scaffold that in turn supported large, circular bundles of color-coated recycled newspapers. And though everything was meticulously put together, you were left with the impression that this was an anonymous construction, something left behind by a construction crew. In this way, her work is not only the sum of its parts but also the equal of its components.

But what really gets me about her work, is once again, this sense of anonymity. So much art work tends to point back to the artist. So many artists are self referential. In Phoebe's work you are drawn out of the self referential dialogue of the artist and his or her creation and into the more outwardly referential dialogue of elements and forces: landscape vs architecture, trash vs treasure, structure vs chaos.

Also Phoebe's work tends to bring environmental issues to mind, which is not surprising since her structures are made entirely of recycled materials. In gallery press, so much emphasis is put on recycling as part of her "process" but I think there's a greater message delivered by her end product. Her installations stand on a question — what are we doing with this stuff? Of course, some people guffaw and say "Why do this?" but I think these structures loudly answer, "Why not?" Aren't more wasteful things being done in this day and age with our left overs?

And though I'd like to think her work speaks a global language, I do think there is something very American about what she is doing. Phoebe herself pointed this out to me when she described an installation she was working on in Italy a couple of years ago. When she went out into the city to collect her materials she had a hard time coming up with enough lumber. That's because many of the Italian worksites she visited were already recycling and reusing their wood scraps in a much more effecient manner than in American worksites. That said, Phoebe deals in a very American idiom, that of conspicuous waste. But you don't really need a story from the artist to understand this fact. Filling a gallery space as large as the Hammer with recycled materials bares witness to the living legacy of American trash and plunder. Thankfully Phoebe has a vision for what can be done with large amounts of our unwanted stuff.

Box Turtle

This evening, come hear some low-watt folk-pop (that's what the kids are calling it) in the car port at Box Turtle, 2616 Kavanaugh Blvd, Little Rock, 72205 - (501) 661-1167.