Eddie Argos, heavy in trench warfare (second from left).

Here’s an unknown fact: Art Brut almost made it onto my Scott Pilgrim mixtape. The European rock outfit didn’t make the cut for their featured song “Fight!” so that I could save myself from creating a double-disc monster. Their lead vocalist, Eddie Argos became one of my favorites though, after hearing his ode to DC comic books on this year’s Art Brut Vs. Satan. Turns out, after flipping through last week’s A.V. Club in the Onion, Argos is a die-hard DC fan, but recently ‘nerded’ out on the Scott Pilgrim series (and Edgar Wright’s movie adaptation). Here’s what he had to say:

Actually, I follow him [Edgar Wright] on Twitter, and he was tweeting about Art Brut Vs. Satan, saying what a good album it was, so I sent him a message going, “Aw, dude, Spaced is amazing.” So we chatted a bit on Twitter, but it’d be a bit forward wouldn’t it—demanding to have our song in it? I think Bryan’s coming to see us when we play North Carolina. That’s what I love about Twitter—all these comic book writers I love, I’m now chatting with on the Internet.

Read the Onion’s full interview here.

*Bonus: Read Eddie Argos’ first response to reading Scott Pilgrim here.

Art Brut “DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake” Art Brut vs. Satan (2009)

I had a really hard time choosing Art Brut and Surfer Blood as the show of the day.  First of all, you can see Chicago indie hip hoppers Cool Kids for just $1 at Webster Hall.  Or you could go see my favorite Alela Diane along with Marissa Nadler at Le Poisson Rouge.  But Art Brut is also a favorite, and frankly, this show just sounds like FUN.  Art Brut is fun.  Surfer Blood is so buzzy people will be there just to see them.  The show is taking place at a bowling alley.  Fun, fun, fun.  Sounds like a pretty good Friday night to me.

MP3: “DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshakes” – Art Brut

Mr. O’Fury posted pictures from last night along with his gushy review of the show here.

Normally I don’t do concert reviews but this one was just too good. If you don’t know about Art Brut, you should. They’re a kickass post-punk indie rock band out of London. They have this polished hard rock sound with an eccentric vocalist who chants more then he sings, with lovable lyrics that are borderline hilarious. From singing about erectile dysfunction to riding the bus to musing about his teenage love, Emily Kane, frontman Eddie Argos is a commanding though perfectly clumsy lead singer who uses the mic cord as a jump rope, spends about two and a half songs pacing through the crowd and is genuinely one of the nicest musicians I’ve met.

The same can be said about everyone in the band – who were completely accessible and downright humbled whenever they were approached for an autograph, or asked to pose for a picture. A  hardworking, world-touring professional rock band they are but when they were offstage and among their fans they were nothing more than nice people.

Enough of my fanboy ramblings…pictures say more than words so let’s take a look…

First, the shirt that Mrs. Boogle made. You can read the backstory on Eddie’s blog but in honor of guitarist Jasper Future, I wore this Rock the Jasper shirt to the show…which proved to be our “in” with the band.

We were there about an hour before doors opened, to get some food and drink, and were amazed when guitarist Ian Catskilkin and Eddie Argos walked into the bar with a few others. They completely blended into the light crowd at the Minneapolis hipster Triple Rock Social Club and just kind of hung around. I thought I saw bass guitarist Freddy Feedback checking out the pinball machine and jukebox but Jasper was nowhere to be found.

Pretty soon Eddie walked by so I called out to him and showed him my shirt — instant cool. He laughed and came over and said, “That’s ace!” He hung around to chat and actually introduced himself, “I’m Eddie,” he extended his hand. Then he tried to take a picture of my shirt but couldn’t figure out how to use his camera phone. “I’ll get it later,” he said before we started talking about comic books. Here he is with me and Mrs. B.

Cool enough for me.

Eddie told us he’d see us inside (and that Jasper was feeling miserable)…and off he went. So once we were in the actual show we were greeted by more rock star accessibility: Jasper Future and drummer Mikey Breyer were working the T-shirt table. Of course, they both loved my shirt, signed autographs and posed for this picture…Note Breyer’s Griswaldian point (some of you will get that).

Jasper Future, Mrs. B, Me and Mikey Breyer.

As the crowd arrived the band hung out among their people, chatting and posing for pictures, signing autographs and generally being the cool music dorks that they are.

Eddie Argos standing among his people

Once the show started and the opening act Surfer Blood finished their set Art Brut took the stage. Enthusiasm was already buzzing and since the band’s last gig was in Omaha, they were excited to play in a (cough:cough) real city, and home of one of their favorite bands: The Replacements. And they played their hearts out – they sounded great and had a great time on stage….

Check out a brief video from the show.

Yeah, we got pretty close.

After the show the band hung around and mingled with their fans – again, they were totally humble and genuinely nice and appreciative. Eddie talked to us for a good ten minutes – mostly about comic books, the slooooooow pace of the Midwest, and his girlfriend’s parents. As Jasper signed my Jasper shirt, I told him it was great to see a band giving 110% and having a great time on stage. His eyes widened and he said, “That was an AWESOME show!!”

Damn right!!

Finally here are some take-home treasures from our night with Art Brut…

The band's set list..."We didn't actually play that," Eddie said as he added his signature.

Well, I was going to get a comic ready to post today, but I was too busy making this shirt for Mr. O’Fury to wear to the Art Brut show at Triple Rock. It didn’t come out quite the way I wanted. It was actually difficult to paint because lots of hairy little cotton fibers kept popping up and interfering with paint application.

It’s a picture of guitarist Jasper Future doing a funny dance we saw him do in some YouTube videos. Everyone seemed to like it. We even got Jasper to sign it.

Mr O’Fury and I thought Art Brut were one of the bestest bands we’ve ever seen live, and not only because the small venue allowed everyone to get up close (although that was a plus…we got to chat with everyone, and Eddie Argos was nice enough to chat with us more than once). Everyone in the band was drinking and enjoying themselves. It was obvious they were having a good time so there was enthusiasm in the air. But in spite of the alcohol they were real pros. There was a lot of communication between all the band members–eye contact, body language, etc.–so they were able to act as a unit while keeping things somewhat spontaneous. Great showmanship all around. I will definitely go see them again.

Au Revoir Simone, Indietracks 2009

Indietracks feels like Isambard Kingdom Brunel putting on All Tomorrow’s Parties, where the only downside is choosing between the gorgeous music and the unlimited steam train rides.

Virtual Festivals, July 2009

Now in its third year, Indietracks has sprung up from very modest beginnings to be one of the UK’s most endearing and eccentric festivals. Taking place at Midland Valley Railway Centre in Riply, Derbyshire, the event is a labour of love for founder Stuart Mackay, who combined two of his passions: restoring steam trains and indie pop, to create one wholly unique event. Indietracks isn’t just a great excuse to discover some great new music, it’s an opportunity to support the earnest restoration of our heritage: the festival acts as a money raiser for the museum, with everyone involved in the weekend volunteering their time for free.

The line-up represents the very best of the indiepop underground, many of whom would be lucky to even to grace the smallest of stages at ATP. Bands come from as far afield as Japan, Italy, Sweden, USA and Argentina; DJs from Berlin, Barcelona and Hong Kong. With Spain’s seminal indiepop label Elefant curating the main stage, there’s also a great selection of Spanish acts including Cola Jet Set, La Casa Azul and Cooper. For a festival that could fit comfortably inside Glastonbury’s Shangri La field, it certainly knows how to punch above its weight.

Familiar labels, fanzines and club nights – such as Fortuna Pop, Twee as Fuck and Lipstick on Your Collar – feature throughout the weekend, either DJing, running workshops or generally getting accosted by indiepop enthusiasts screaming, “oh my God, you’re from Talulah Gosh!”

Part of the charm of Indietracks is the ability to actually explore the heritage around the site. From having a drink at the bar in an old buffet car, to standing right next to one of the massively-intimidating locomotives, to the free and unlimited steam train rides – some of which actually feature gigs by some of the acts – it’s hard to walk around without feeling a sense of satisfaction that you’ve discovered something very special.

Tickets for the festival are priced at a very reasonable £55, but there’s a catch – it doesn’t include camping. For this you have to book separately at the nearby Golden Valley Campsite (£20 each per night for two people, a car and one pitch) or further afield. Although the campsite itself is beautiful, clean and very close – only a ten minute walk up a nice, leafy lane to the site – if the festival organisers could make a deal to include camping in the ticket price Indietracks would be almost perfect.

Getting there and back

For a festival built around trains it’s a shame you can’t rail it all the way – but then you can blame Richard Beeching’s desolation of the network in the 1960s for that. The nearest railway stations to the Midland Railway are Derby, Nottingham or Alfreton, with regular buses to the site Monday to Saturday (the Nottingham route drops off at the nearby town of Ripley; from there it’s a short taxi ride). The H1 service from Alfreton takes you direct to the Golden Valley Campsite.

Gas-guzzlers have it easy – Ripley is minutes from the M1 and A38. Parking is free and Indietracks have a Freewheelers Page (linked from the Indietracks website) where you can arrange a car share.

Site

Tiny and intimate, the site centres around Stanwick Junction on the Midland Valley line. As well as the main stage – which only this year has been upgraded from a lorry trailer – there’s an indoor stage in an old railway shed and a lovingly restored church, hosting some of the more intimate gigs (a fourth venue, hosting DJs, is housed at the Golden Valley campsite). A narrow gauge railway runs right through the site – manned by two of the friendliest railway workers you’ll ever have the pleasure to meet – while you can jump on one of the regular steam train rides from Stanwick Junction itself. You can also explore the locomotives and old mail trains in the gargantuous exhibition hall and marvel at the restored diesel trains that litter the tracks around the site. A bar in the shed offers a ridiculous array of real ale, but food wise there’s only a small-but-tasty curry stall and a café, which serves the kind of food that would make Hilda Ogden proud, but hardly the health-conscious.

Atmosphere

A festival on train tracks full of twee poppers is a sure-fire bet to bring ridiculous grins to the most cynical of people. The atmosphere is happy and easy-going rather than the frantic craziness of, say Bestival.  The low capacity means that the vibe takes a little time to pick up each day, with the main stage crowd dispersing in-between bands in favour of the workshops and other stages – an idea would be to draft in some of the great DJs on site to fill the void. However, by dusk – and especially in the late discos in the Shed – the atmosphere becomes excitingly electric.

Music

Au Revoir Simone – 7/10

Headlining Friday’s Elefant stage Annie Hart, Erika Forster and Heather D’Angelosway are a perfect opener to the weekend, delivering their purring gothic synth-pop from behind individual keyboards with dreamy abandon. Still seemingly lacking from onstage confidence, their presence is limited to softly-softly swaying to the ethereal harmonies. But while the shyness is often captivating they’re still crying out for something else – if only they’d do something like twirl around the stage like Alice In Wonderland every now and then, it would compliment the gothic tales they’re so good at relaying.

Teenage Fanclub – 8/10

The Fannies have still got it. Headlining on Sunday, the rustled post-punk guitars and absorbing, swirling harmonies still sound as relevant as when ‘Bandwagonesque’ hit the shops in 1991 with its Big Star-inspired greatness. New songs, like the country-tinged ‘Baby Lee’, are delicious but classic Fanclub-jangly and they close with a swooning ‘Neil Jung’.

La Casa Azul – 9/10

You’d never think a guy dressed as the Stig from Top Gear would make so many people gush and dance with happiness, but Spain’s La Casa Azul absolutely storm the place on Saturday night. Combining the anthemic disco of Abba with kind of rich production that made the Beach Boys so tantalising, La Casa Azul feature five members but only one of them – the deliciously named Milkyway – ever appears live. The backdrop becomes a massive video console for entire set, sometimes displaying the AWOL members of the band singing and playing, sometimes featuring Space Invaders pixels dancing along to the fresh, addictive choruses. La Casa Azul are like a wild and tropic mix of the Go! Team, Pizzicato 5 and the Scissor Sisters and their joyous, skyscraping cover of ‘Love Is In The Air’ is the absolute highlight of the weekend.

MJ Hibbett – 9/10

MJ Hibbett is an Indietracks favourite and he proved his worth this year by piling a hundred people into a moving steam train carriage and singing songs about how his boss used to be in an indie band. Hibbert is like Billy Bragg with a smile and a belly full of real ale. His tales are endearing, rich and funny, his delivery perfectly-timed. At one point he recounts the panic of fellow passengers faced with a group of revellers on the way to Gay Pride on ‘the Gay Train’. Later in the evening Eddie Argos pays his own respect by repeatedly shouting “MJ Hibbett … Top of the Pops!” during Art Brut’s set. It’s worth fighting for the return of TOTP just to make that happen.

Little My – 7/10

They sound like an explosion in a primary school music cupboard. They look fresh from the pages of ‘Where The Wild Things Are’. They feel like watching ‘The Flumps’ inside a tambourine. Little My are a mess of indie kids from Cardiff and tonight they pull grins around your silly face faster than you can say Fisher Price Orchestra. Dressed in bear suits and animal ears and playing the most charming twee pop their only musical benchmark is surely ‘Alberto Frog and His Amazing Animal Band’ from seminal 80s kids show ‘Bod’.

Art Brut – 8/10

Far from tiring of all the sweet indiepop, by Sunday evening you just need a little wry sarcasm; a little showmanship; a little post-Fall battle of your senses maybe; a little Eddie Argos. As ever, Eddie doesn’t disappoint, leaning ever closer into the people, marvellously spitting those blunt, loser tales out and over the Shed audience. Behind him the rest of the Brut stylishly grind away at the scrappy, scratchy anthems, as much a match for the eyes of the crowd as Argos’s intoxicating endeavours.

Uppers

All Aboard!

Trains! Everywhere you look there are steam trains, diesel trains, old rustic rolling stock, even a demonstration signal box where you can watch the main stage from – have you ever watched Camera Obscura from a signal box? You can even ride right past the main stage on a little narrow gauge train, while the super-friendly Midland Railway staff wave you on.

All Online!

The Indietracks website and blog – probably one of the best festival websites out there. It not only gives excellent information on the location, directions and band timings, the blog features interviews with most of the bands and workshop organisers, plus plenty of MySpace links so you can research the line-up and pick your must-sees before you get there. There’s even a train timetable so you can plan your train rides in advance.

Downers

The ying and yang of the Golden Valley Campsite

The campsite itself is beautiful and well looked after, offering a café, bar, refreshing showers, electric points and some friendly staff. But there seemed an underlying crabbiness aimed at the people attending the festival – from the initial phone call to make the booking to the ludicrous decision to charge £5 to get in to the disco marquee each night. As a result DJs that had come all the way from Berlin were faced with less than a dozen people on Friday night. By Sunday the campsite had seen sense, offering free entry which accommodated an incredible final night party, but treating people – who are already paying money to camp and drink at the bar – like this is disgusting.

Random Events

The campsite revolution on Saturday night when a load of Indiepoppers barged into the marquee when the security dropped their guard for a second. Twee as fuck indeed!

When dealing with outsider art, respect is due. Nay, respect is essential. But so is egalitarianism. The danger has always been to treat the savants and unexpected genii of the outsider world with something other than the same deference usually saved for normal artists. It is, of course, only the market’s imposition on the fruits of artistic labour, and the artist’s heed of its overbearing weight which differs between those artists slave to it and those removed from it…

And it is in this light that I approached three recent cultural exponents of the outsider cause: the opening of the new Museum of Everything in Primrose Hill, the Koestler Trust’s 2009 Art By Offenders, Secure Patients and Detainees exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall, and a wonderful opportunity to see Mr Daniel Johnston performing at the splendid Bloomsbury Ballroom.

Firstly, the Museum of Everything. Just around the corner from the tea rooms, bistros and cocaine residue of this illustrious corner of NW1 lies a treasure trove of outsider art – the collection of filmmaker James Brett – which has been promoted to the public as not only “London’s first ever space for artists and creators living outside our modern society”. The result is less than respectful.

The curatorial decision seems to have been to make the space, you know, kooky, like these kooky fellas on show. All slanted walls, badly drawn name signs and cobbled together display rooms both using and enhancing the space’s industrial backwater ambience. Unpainted/badly painted walls, breeze block walls and jutting out wires and bricks make for a space knowingly different… but not outsider. A gallery space doesn’t have to go this far to mark itself as distinct from the white space of the contemporary gallery. Indeed, one of the most celebrated and complete collectiosn of Outsider Art – the collection of Mr Art Brut himself, Jean Dubuffet, in Lausanne – is a perfect embodiment of this. At no point does this gallery impinge on the work it is celebrating, but rather takes a back seat letting the Dargers, the Scotts and the Gills take over. Similarly, the Whitechapel’s Inner Worlds Outside exhibition of a few years previously fully respected these works by placing them alongside their contemporaries illustrating the interaction of the arts in recent history outside of a framework potted with distinctions. The Museum of Everything seems to knowingly plays upon its difference from contemporary art at a time when the latters’ association with money and greed threatens to devalue it further than the market itself has managed.

As such, I left this new museum dejected, even having seen a wonderful collection of artists all worth noting and celebrating. The calligraphic meanderings of Dan Miller, for example, 

Dan Miller

or the troublingly post-propaganda Soviet ramblings of Alexandre P. Lobanov 

Alexandre P. Lobanov

On a more positive note, however, the museum’s decision to ask noted artists to write about its exhibitors was a fantastic one, and one which salvaged some sort of favour in my eyes. I was particularly fascinated by not only the speakers they chose, but the apparent linkages. Jamie Shovlin’s relation to Charles AA Dellschau’s stunted historiography, Tal R’s appropriate evocation of Judith Scott’s luxuriously colourful abstractions, and even Pete Townsend’s celebration of the extraordinarily powerful drawings of Donald Pass.

Donald Pass, untitled, 1984

 

I encountered similar problems at the Royal Festival Hall attending the 2009 Koestler Trust exhibition. Again, the work was fascinating and, at times, truly exceptional, not to mention largely devoid of the clichés and inanities of contemporary frieze-art. And, in fact, the exhibitions’ place on the Spirit Level of the RFH is well chosen and well-curated – by inmates of two women’s prisons as it turns out. Unfortunately, the Southbank appears to then kick itself in the foot by repeatedly failing to advertise the work sufficiently. In none of the flyer stands, of which there are many, can be found leaflets promoting this exhibition, and on encountering the few works which sit on the main concourse, you would be hard pushed to realise their were more works to be found downstairs. Such a wonderful opportunity to see the work and minds of these artists deserves better.

Particularly noteworthy were two works, one by an inmate from HMP Brendon, Bucks listed only as Michael entitled Is Masculinity Inevitable?, and another anonymously exhibition by an inmate from HMP Shotts, Scotland entitled Yours Sincerely, The Tabloid Press.

Is Masculinity Inevitable? , Michael, HMP Brendon, Bucks

Is Masculinity Inevitable? (detail)

 

Yours Sincerely, the Tabloid Press, Anon, HMP Shotts, Scotland

 

Both – though not necessarily proficient in high-art terms – exhibit a developed ability with their materials, whilst picking apart some of the more interesting questions which must reoccur within penal institutions. Masculinity is presented shot through with metaphors both expected and ambiguous, from matadors to molecular science, history lessons through to contemporary history. The result is a seeming meditation on the complexity of the human condition, exemplified in a way the tabloid press would be hard pressed to believe never mind appreciate. The second work, subsequently, embodies a more immediate and impassioned response to the Paparazzi’s approach to the accused and their families: slobbering, scrupulous and stoic in their hounding and, impressively, with more than one face as the sky curdles and surroundings haemorrhage.

Here is the world of the penal outsider, stripped of dignity and attempting to claw some back in paint and pen. Rather than working “outside our modern society” as, supposedly, are the outsiders of the Museum of Everything, here we find men and women working AS A RESULT OF modern society, or so they seem to say… There are few declarations of dissatisfaction with the results of their choices, and their position in society, but dissatisfaction with society – civilization in Freudian terms – abounds. The confines of the RFH appear an appropriately cultured and Liberal surround to showcase such views within.

And so finally to the admirable and incredible Daniel Johnston, whose surroundings at the Bloomsbury Ballroom appeared the perfect final resting place of my week of outsider art: triumphant, elegant and perfectly social. Here was a setting neither outside nor aware of its relation to culture.. this was HIGH culture, and brazenly so… and Daniel Johnston shone in the spotlight bearing all his fragility and fears as a badge of pride. 

Daniel Johnston w. David Tatersall of The Wave Pictures.

 

Starting off with just a guitar like a babe-in-arms for company, Daniel walked on stage nervous and awkward. He played a few songs to rapturous applause, and for the moment, I was uneasy. I am a big fan of Johnston’s music, but the response seemed almost out of kilter with the reality of Johnston’s rickety attempts at renditions. What’s more, I couldn’t hold in the feeling that the applause lay somewhere between appreciation and encouragement, and the awkward patronising sound of pity…

Yet as time went on, Johnston grew in stature. Never relaxed, but certainly enjoying himself and allowing himself a joke or two, songs such as Living Life and Bloody Rainbow, sung with accompaniment, were joyful and enchanting, and the final rendition of True Love Will Find You in the End couldn’t have been better judged.

And it was with the accompaniment of support band The Wave Pictures for this and indeed the last five or six numbers that Johnston truly came into his own. Their enjoyable brand of indie lounge rock sloped away behind him, providing the occasional glimmering solo, and most memorably a crunching and riotous embellishment of his track Rock N Roll, as Johnston yelped over the guitars his lyrics about how rock n roll, and more specifically the Beatles gave him something to live for as a young man with extreme Bipolar disorder. And as he screeched

        That Rock N Roll, it saved my soul

 one couldn’t help but feel glad it had, and that it was doing the same for a room full of people.

 **

In the Wave Pictures’ accompaniment of Daniel Johnston I witnessed the most disarming spectacle of the week. Three young musicians clearly alongside a hero, a hero with extreme difficulties who had to leave the stage to collect himself more than once during the concert. Yet playing alongside him they appeared to experience all the joy one would expect of such an opportunity. Almost goading each other on to rock out more heavily on Rock N Roll, they enjoyed every second of their evening with him, and so did he it appeared.

Similarly, the inmates given the opportunity to show their work by the Koestler Trust, and those invited to curate the exhibition, were treated with nearly all the respect due to them as artists standing alone.

Yet in the Museum of Everything, we have the ability to witness the work of some of the most interesting and truly wonderful artists of the last century or so, celebrated endlessly since Dubuffet and Hans Prinzhorn first acknowledged the proffers of those working “outside of society” decades ago, presented as the misfits hundreds of people have worked painstakingly to put an end to… it’s a disappointing rendition of an inspiring collection, and a continuingly important insight.

Heeell yeah! Having just seen a fabulous SF show from our dear friends Art Brut (I like to imagine we’re dear friends, anyway) during the summer, I was stoked to discover they’d be playing for free on the Davis campus on Halloween night.

My only regret is that Davis is so lame (ok.. let me amend that to say ‘is so lame sometimes’), cause the show was sooo fun, and yet majorly underpopulated in a huge hall

The band was wearing costumes! How awesome is this picture:

Glowing eyeballlllls. Creeptastic! They were in their fine exuberant usual weird form, which I really enjoy. There actually was a pretty good amount of dancing given the small size of the audience and considering this isn’t really ‘dance’ music (so much as ‘rock out’ music).

Eddie came down into the tiny crowd and stormed around, haha.

I think it looks like he’s about to touch that guy’s face.

I have to say if I had never heard them before, I definitely would think they were kind of strange, and obsessed with DC comics to a bit of an unhealthy degree, haha. (they played “DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshakes” and altered “Modern Art” to instead be about DC comics, ie. “DC comics make me! want to rock! out!”)

At another point he was like, “You know, it helps to have a band, ‘cause you can turn your problems into songs, and get over them. And this song is about erectile dysfunction. Ready, Art Brut!” *rock out*

After the show I got a pretty neat mug (it says “BRING ME TEA. BRING ME COFFEE.”) from the band’s bassist, Freddy Feedback (the only girl in the band). Haha, from this picture, you’d think we actually were good buddies:

Freddy (devil), me (from the future), and my sis Chelsea (viking). Interesting that we all have horns of some kind (mine are less noticeable here, but they are actually antennae).

Halloween good times.

Well first off my creative act for the day hasn’t happened yet, since I decided it would be taking pictures at the Art Brut show for Spinning Platters. Though I guess I was half-creative in getting my boyfriend to create a banner for me. It needs to be re-sized though so the quality will look better.

I’ll update this post tomorrow with a picture from the show since it’ll be a late night by the time I get back.

(The next day)

So it turns out I wasn’t needed to take pictures for the site, so I just took a few for me, but mostly I just enjoyed the show.

Trainspotting reference?

]]> http://hotviruz.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/hot-viruz-records-more/ Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:51:05 +0000 hotviruz http://hotviruz.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/hot-viruz-records-more/

Periodo di grandi novità in casa HotViruz.

Numerose  le iniziative intraprese fra cui la nascente etichetta che produrrà l’ultima fatica dei longevi Lush Rimbaud, band con cui HVO ha avuto sempre forti legami. Dopo aver prodotto qualche hanno fa il video Remember sammy Jenkis (la cui regia porta la firma del collettivo Postodellefragole, che proprio in quella occasione girava il suo primo videoclip) i ragazzi della HotViruz hanno deciso di partecipare alla cooproduzione di The sound of the vanishing era, album che uscirà a Novembre 2009 in formato LP con cd all’interno. Ovviamente gli dedicheremo un post del nostro blog appena l’album sarà sfornato e fra le nostre mani.

Oltre a questo, entro fine anno HotViruz aprirà una propria sezione grafica curata da Paolo Camangi, che si occuperà di fornire supporto ideativo,  grafico e web a band, agenzie e a tutto  ciò che ruota attorno al mondo della musica e dalla cultura.

Ma non finisce qui…a dicembre partirà anche il podcast in collaborazione con Radio Africa che ci darà la possibilità di condividere gusti e influenze musicali  che rappresentano l’anima della nostra organizzazione.

A brevissimo invece Hot Viruz si occuperà anche di fornire  servizi di van, backline e tour management per le tournè dei Piano Magic, Art Brut, Cesarians e Savage Republic grazie alle numerose collaborazioni sancite con agenzie italiane e non.

Restate in contatto…

Apologies in advance: In this Q&A with Eddie Argus, lead singer for Art Brut, you’ll see sections of his answers replaced with ????’s. This represents lapses in my comprehension of Argus’ thick-as-Guinness accent, combined with whatever exhaustion-comedown the front man was suffering on his first day off in 11 days. I also might have misheard some of his responses.

Now that’s out of the way, allow me to say this: Art Brut, despite whatever lack of imagination a critic might lay on them, is a band with a personality—one pretentious in its accessibility. Only a band with complete confidence in its charisma would combine the term Art Brut (a classical reference to the artistic expression of inmates and the mentally ill) with mundane observations on Argus’ attraction to Marvel comics and chocolate milkshakes or unimportant debates over which British Invasion band was the most talented. Soundwise, the band is Brit-rock at its most consistent,  most Clash-like and, in my opinion, damned fun, snicker-inducing listening, if not exactly intellectually stimulating.Though, I could talk to Argus for days about our common fascination with comic books.

The band plays the Casbah on Wednesday, Oct. 28. Fog-permitting, I’ll be there. Here’s our back and forth.

How’s it going? I heard you were in the shower when I called the first time.

Yeah. I picked up at the wrong time, I think. I waited to use the phone for, like, half an hour, and when you didn’t call, I jumped into the shower. I must’ve missed you by about a second.

No worries. Listening to you talk, I’m going to need to you talk a little slower for me. Your accent is a little bit thicker than I was expecting.

OK. That’s fine, man.

Where are you guys now?

Right now, I think I’m in El Paso. It’s our first day off after 11 days.

And your day off is in El Paso?

Yeah, it’s a driving day, really. There aren’t many days off on this tour, so it’s quite hectic. I’m in a Holiday Inn in the middle of nowhere.

El Paso, I think, is probably the shadiest city in the entire country. It’s right there next to Juarez, the central front in the drug-cartel war. It’s, like, a police officer is found beheaded every other day there or something like that. But get yourself a big steak while you’re there.

I’m starving. That’s what I’m looking for now, but now I’m scared. You’ve told me it’s a scary place.

Just don’t turn on any highway that’ll take you to Juarez. Other than that, you should be fine. Let me start off: Is your little brother still into rock ‘n’ roll?

Yup, yup, he still is. He’s 27 now and still likes it.

He’s not that little then.

No. I didn’t think he was that little either…????…so he’s practically grown up.

As far as the band is concerned, would you be offended if I referred to you as ’slop rock’?

Sloth rock?

Not sloth, slop. S-L-O-P.

S-L-O-P?… ?????…  No…?????….that genre of music. I like comics a lot. Is that a sloppy thing to do?

Um, no. Well, I’ve got a comic question next. Got any thoughts on this Marvel-Disney merger.

You know what? I think it’s funny seeing people superimpose pictures of Captain America onto Mickey Mouse, but I think that is not what’s going to happen. Disney is massive—they’re very massive. I think this will be good, innit, for Marvel. They’ll get people really good at… ?????… Disney characters. I don’t think we’re going to see a Bambi vs. The Hulk or something.

Looking at some of the weird stuff you do during your stage show—you got anything planned for the San Diego gig?

No, it’s kinda spontaneous…. ????… Whatever the mood takes us at the time.

Anything come up on the tour so far? You surprise yourself at all?

I managed to break about five microphones when were in Tallahassee. That was quite impressive.

What were you doing in Tallahassee?

I was skipping and I was climbing. Then I also had the third one broken when people started cheering. I thought, people are enjoying this, so I broke the next one on purpose.

I was looking at your blog. You have a lot of candy up there. You got a Halloween costume planned out?

Yeah, I think maybe something from the Muppets, I’m not sure yet. We’re in San Francisco on the day before Halloween, so I think I’ll dress up there.

You gotta be the fish thrower [Lew Zealand]—that would be my suggestion.

He’s got massive eyebrows actually, as have I. That’s probably a good idea. I look a bit like him, so maybe I should go as him.

If you do, give me a shout out. So, what is it about the Rolling Stones that make them better than the Beatles, and I ask that especially considering you’ve got a track called “Twist and Shout.”

I don’t really have a preference over the two…in “What a Rush” I say they’re records that my parents owned. I think they’re both the same, fun to have on a jukebox.

But you did sing about having a preference.

I also like to be contrary. I apologize for things I said in the next bit of the song. The idea is that’s a stupid argument to have.

So, I am a big fan of the new album, Art Brut vs. Satan, and I do think it is the best so far of the three, but I have trouble convincing some of my friends. They say it sounds undifferentiable from the previous two. What for you is different with latest album from the previous two?

The new one’s very different from the second one and it’s a bit like the first one. The second one is way different. It’s weird. One second, people are either saying that Art Brut is exactly the same or Art Brut changed too much…????…. We really produced [the second album] and worked hard in the studio and stuff. With the third album, we just recorded the tracks for about as long as those tracks last, because it was done in one take and kinda rushed. It’s a bit more honest—it’s the most honest Art Brut album, I think. It sounds more like how we sound live.

When I first got Bang Bang Rock and Roll, my comparison was with a band in Manchester called Robin Nature-Bold and Band(ism). I don’t suppose you ever heard of them?

No, I’ll look them up.

I don’t know whether they’re even around anymore. But they had a song called “Peacock,” and I wonder whether you’d describe yourself as a peacock.

Um, maybe a bit. Not really. Our drummer Mikey is more of a peacock, standing up behind the drum kit so you can see him. He’s a well-dressed man. I don’t really put much effort into what I wear. Mikey’s a handsome, good-looking man; he spends a lot of time making himself look good. I wish I was peacock, actually. Maybe you’re right, perhaps I’m a slop—that’s what it is.

 

Art Brut

Princeton should take a few cues from their tour mates when it comes to showmanship.

While they don’t really sound alike (Princeton a sugary pop band, tour mates Art Brut a brash rock group with a lead singer that doesn’t sing), Art Brut’s energy is always infectious, and any band should take note.

Art Brut’s set in Baton Rouge on Friday was that of a band sticking to their schtick. Lead singer Eddie Argos has made the band’s name by, as mentioned above, not singing, but rather speaking lyrics.  Sometimes they are in rhythm, sometimes they aren’t. The verses, choruses and the occasional bridge were there, there just weren’t any notes.

And that wasn’t a huge deal,  since the songs were so good and the performances were even better. Since the band gained a lot of buss back in 2005 and 2006 with their debut album Bang Bang Rock & Roll, they have perfected their stage show.

As the band stretched out, Argos was given ample time to tell his stories and ramble about things like DC Comics, record stores and Guitar Hero.

And even though their new album, Art Brut vs. Satan, is a worthy addition to their catalog, the best moments came from earlier albums. “Formed a Band,” “Direct Hit” and “Emily Kane” are still hilarious, great songs.

 

Princeton

For better or for worse though, Princeton was the exact opposite of Art Brut. Instead of loose and raw, they were tight and polished … a little too polished.

The band is touring after the release of their debut album, Cocoon, and while the albums is very lush and orchestrated, it can be hard to pull that off with just four people (it makes for a lot of keyboards and funny-sounding guitars). As a result, the band played very precise versions of the songs, keeping their little orchestra as tight as possible.

And I guess that was my problem with what I saw. As the set wore on, the band got looser and looser, but it still wasn’t enough (it didn’t help that they opened with their best song, “Sadie and Andy,” but it can hardly be called the root of all their problems). Sure, the crowd was small and, for the most part, uninterested, but being a startup band means you are used to it.

Princeton wasn’t used to it, and their performance showed that.They need that extra push to make the live experience just as good as the album (and, in turn, make the audience that much more interested).

It’s all right to have a very tight, poppy sound on record, but if the energy isn’t amped up live, it loses a lot of the power. Hopefully Princeton recognizes this soon, just like Art Brut has.

The internet is a Very Good Thing. Sure, we’ve known that forever but now and then there comes a moment when we really realise it and sometimes it goes a little like this.

I’m bored of listening to the same old tunes,  I want something fresh!…but where to go?…oh hey, I remember Ra Ra Riot once rating this station called WOXY, I wonder if they’re online..they are!!! High fives! Let’s stream…ooh, this tune’s crazy, I wonder who it’s by…some kids called Los Campesinos!? I’ve never heard of them, I wonder if I can hear more on Spotify…I can!!! And they’re crazy awesome!!! WIN!!!

And when you consider the entire thought process above took about about 17 seconds, it becomes even more apparent that when it comes to music, the interwebz kicks all kinds of ass.

Los Campesinos! (yes, that ! is part of a name, not just an indication of my overflowing enthusiasm for these kids) are like the Welsh Ra Ra Riot who have been force-fed all kinds of sugary delights filled with terrifying E numbers and then sat in front of a grab-bag of instruments. Wild, poppy, and slightly mad, sunshine results. So do titles like You! Me! Dancing!, We Throw Parties You Throw Knives and This is How You Spell “HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of an Entire Generation of Faux-Romantics” (nope, I’m not even kidding). How they manage to pull that shit off and not come across as unbearably pretentious amazes me, but it probably has something to do with their aforementioned cheery vibes.

There’s even a hint of a hint of Art Brut in the occasionally spat-more-than-sung vocals, though cheery melodies and token glockenspeil tend to take the edge of any real malevolence in the sometimes cryptic, sometimes bonkers lyrics (There’s red stains all over the place/But they’re not blood, they’re cherryade/We throw parties, you throw knives/It’s all the same if the fizzy drinks are nice). Though they can seem in danger of making a racket rather than a tune, they always manage to stay just this side of melody and not quite let themselves completely explode from their crazy, shouty, jumpy energy. In fact, the joyful rebellion of LC’s riotous, cacophonous sound will make you want to climb on the nearest table, throw your hands up in defiance at how crap the world is and cry, ‘Sod it! We can still have fun even if everything has gone to hell in a handbasket! AND WE WILL!’ and, to be quite frank, who doesn’t need that right now?

Do yourself a favour pronto and check these guys out. You’ll thank me. I take cheques.

My Los Campesinos! picks on Spotify

Myspace

Website (it’s worth noting that they’re pretty regular bloggers)

Twitter

Here, have a video, because I bloody LOVE YOU (and there’s CONFETTI! and RAINBOWS! and KITTENS! Huzzah!)…

I can’t say I know much about London indie band Art Brut but a friend of mine (thanks, David Willis) recommended this song to me a couple of months ago and I’ve since heard a few more of their songs and been pretty impressed.

They remind somewhat of a cross between Half Man Half Biscuit and Pulp.

From their third album Art Brut vs. Satan, produced by former Pixies frontman Frank Black and released in April this year, this is DC Comics And Chocolate Milkshake (two things pretty close to the Choob’s heart, though I prefer banana ’shakes to chocolate).

The performance was filmed live on June 13 this year at Seattle radio station KEXP.

Enjoy!

(“Spangled Blengins, Boy King Islands. One is a Young Tuskerhorian, the Other a Human Headed Dortherean”
Collage, Carbon Tracing, Pencil and Watercolor by Henry Darger)

“Art, by its very essence, is of the new, we expect art to uproot us, to unhinge doors. When the pompous platforms of Culture are erected, and awards and laurels come raining down, then flee as fast as you can, there’ll be little hope for art. If art did exist here, it’s already gone by now, it hurried off for a change of air. It’s allergic to the air of collective approval.”

- Henry Darger

In 1972, the art critic Roger Cardinal brought forth into the culture a new, working English descriptor synonymous for Jean Dubuffet’s “art brut” (raw art or rough art) in his book, “Cultural Conditioning”. The new coinage became “outsider art” and would henceforth yoke the necks of untrained and self-trained artists alike as a wretched, dead, stinking albatross to be cheerfully lugged up mountainside while pushing a boulder. Such Sisyphean toil serves only as a crippling stigma to the artist who deserves to be treated as a brother or a sister in the community despite their lack of academic/aesthetic programming. This only benefits the so-called “Creative Class” who were already born into considerable wealth and monied tourists to throw their pennies at the freak show and laugh. It was no mistake that Dubuffet focused his art brut attentions on insane asylum patients. Dubuffet was the son of a well-to-do wine merchant and received his early studies at the prestigious yet revolutionary Académie Julian in Paris. As much as Dubuffet was a great champion of a more primitive, yeomanlike approach in his own work, he was afforded a certain position at the social expense of non-academic artists.

More to the point: if one artist is an outsider, then, we are all a bunch of outsiders. Welcome to the club.

(“Still a sorry saint…” One of only three known photos of Henry Darger, possibly the last. Late 1960’s, early 1970’s. Lincoln Park neighborhood. Chicago, Illinois.)

The exact month and day have been debated for years, but according to all reports, Henry Joseph Darger, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 12th, 1892. On June 2nd, 1917, toward the end of World War I, Darger filled out a draft registration card for the U.S. Army. He listed his birth date as April 17th, 1892. From the time he was a young boy until he was aged seventy-nine years, he exhaustively amassed the great vernacular fantasy work, “The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion”. At 15,145 pages, he collected volumes of his writings by re-using old telephone books which also displayed hundreds of his delicate illustrations depicting his asexual girl-boy warriors, The Vivian Girls. Henry Darger died the day after his eighty-first birthday on April 13th, 1973. His landlords, Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner came across Darger’s monumental work moments before his death. Nathan Lerner, himself, was a professional photographer whose images appeared in The New York Times for many years. Immediately seeing the profound depth of artistic merit in his volumes, the Lerners took charge of Henry Darger’s estate. Nathan Lerner died in 1997, making his widow, Kiyoko Lerner, solely in charge of both estates. The Artists Rights Society is the United States copyright representative for both Henry Darger and Nathan Lerner.

(“At Jennie Richee – Vivian Girls Are Sent By General (Emperor) Vivian Their Father To Seize A Certain Enemy Plan” Carbon Tracing, Pencil and Watercolor by Henry Darger)

To give an encapsulated overview of the life and work of Henry Darger would extend beyond a couple thousand words, and I don’t want to wear you out with my spin on all what has already been said in tribute songs by Sufjan Stevens and Natalie Merchant, a well-researched article on Wikipedia, and the extremely fine 2004 documentary, “In the Realms of the Unreal” by Jessica Yu. Nor will I bother to speculate on the layers of his eccentricity and mental illness. Preferably, I wish to give my interpretation of how his art effects me, and as I opined in the beginning, what an abomination of a title “outsider art” is in describing the work of poor, dormant geniuses.

During his lifetime, Darger, who worked as a low-paid hospital janitor for sixty-plus years had his manic obsessions. He combined his devout Catholicism with his defending love of children, Christianity, and The Civil War. For Darger, his novel was a true labor of love. He did it for only himself, though in the narrative, he leads the observer to believe that he was a protector of these children who were very real to him. Essentially, The Vivian Girls were his friends. Darger had no desire for financial gain from the adventures of these characters.

Henry Darger imbued his child warriors with what he perceived to be the Spirit of the Holy Ghost. It’s very effective, for the “girls” seem to levitate off the page, to float entirely on their own. They individually appeared to be capable of all that was miraculous… and were pretty handy with bow and arrow in mortal combat. I leave you here, my friends. Something to think about.

So far I’ve blogged quite a lot about TV and movies, so it’s about time that I wrote something about music. Probably no better place to start than a piece about my favourite band.

Art Brut are Eddie Argos, Ian Catskilkin, Jasper Future, Freddy Feedback and Mikey B. They’ve had three albums and are quite frankly amazing. They’re one of those bands that is somehow more famous in the rest of the world than they are here when they should be number one every week. Frankly, the BBC should bring back Top of the Pops just so Art Brut can be on.

Eddie Argos: "Ready Art Brut......... GO!"

The music is fantastic post-punk indie pop art-rock… umm… okay, I’m not great at describing it, so let’s just call it “very good”. The opening riff in Bad Weekend is as good as anything else from the last decade. It’s impossible not to want to jump up and down to Modern Art. Eddie’s vocal style is to talk more than sing, somehow complimenting the music perfectly.

Art Brut’s lyrics are full of wit and candour. Eddie Argos is the drinking man’s Jarvis Cocker, his songs recalling personal experiences from a difficult night between the sheets to sending apologetic texts while suffering a hangover. Perhaps I enjoy the band so much because I can often really deeply connect with the themes of the songs – feeling like a juvenile at the age of 28, still holding a torch for a long-lost ex, eating dessert when feeling depressed, feeling awkward around the opposite sex. Sometimes it feels as if the songs are about me, which probably isn’t always a good thing.

Jasper Future: This is one of my favourite photos I've ever taken at a gig

The lyrics are imbued with a deep love of music. Some tracks share names with older songs (I Will Survive, The Passenger) and subjects include forming a band, sharing a mix tape, and the love of under-produced records where you can hear noises in the background. One song is about discovering The Replacements, though it could be about any band you discover years after you should.

But it’s the humour in the lyrics that are the real highlights, whether it’s a song about moving to LA (“Everything’s gonna be just fine, I hear the murder rate is in decline”) or a bank robbery to steal 18,000 Lira (“Sounds like a lot of money!”). And there’s no more glorious moment in music history than the point in Good Weekend, a song about having a new girlfriend, when Eddie shouts “I’ve seen her naked… TWICE!”

Another favourite lyric of mine comes from break-up song Post Soothing Out:

River deep and mountain high
There’s some lyrics that’ll never apply
‘Cause I don’t lie awake at night
With thoughts of river depth or mountain height

Demons Out! was written just after the band was dropped by their record label, and is a wonderfully bitter swipe at the music industry:

On your visa, it says ‘entertainer’
You’d better step it up or they’re gonna detain you
It’s all smoke and mirrors, don’t go and see ‘em
I wanted rock ‘n roll, I got a science museum
So we stayed up, and we argued all night
If we can’t change the world
Let’s at least get the charts right

Freddy Feedback: "Go, guitar, go!"

But the real reason I love Art Brut is for their live shows. They are, without a doubt, the most fun band to go and see. I was first introduced to them during the V 06 festival. I wandered into one of the tents, found the enthusiastic fans all chanting “Art Brut Top of The Pops!” and then saw the band walk on and launch into the intro to AC/DC’s Back in Black before starting Formed a Band. From that moment on, I was hooked.

I’ve seen them quite a few times now, every time they’ve put on a hell of a performance. Every element of the records is amplified on stage, the music rocks that much harder, the humour is even more present as Argos talks to the audience between (and during) songs. Lyrics are added to songs from artists as diverse as The Yummy Fur, The Chi-lites and The Modern Lovers. Eddie uses the microphone lead as a skipping rope, jumps into the crowd, even jumps on the bar (or in one case, orders a drink half way through a song). Sometimes Eddie urges us to form a band, because it’s a fun thing to do, and when you look at the stage you realise it’s true – if we in the crowd are having a good time, the band are having an even better one. Everyone leaves each gig exhausted, breathless and with a huge smile on their face.

I’ve not been great at describing them, so instead just have a look at some clips:

My homie down in L.A.  Danny -Printer/Designer/Professional Pro just posted some recent work on his site ohdanielsan.com
Here’s some of his goodies:

The Naylor News bags

ohdanielsan.com

che che che che check it out:

He’s done some really great work for some amazing artists and bands. He even did the shipping bags for yours truly. The bags for my shirt project The Naylor News came out great and Danny’s been a really good friend for a long time. His special lady Lauren Noble is also a good friend and an awesome photographer.

Danny and I use to play in a band together. In fact our tour along the west coast is what introduced me to the radness that is PDX and served as a basis for us following the Oregon Trail.

Side Note:

I meant to mention this but a couple weeks when I was driving and I saw this:

Ok, So this wasn’t the plate that I saw but the photo I took came out like crap, so this is just an example. It made me chuckle that Idaho settled on the slogan “Famous Potatoes”. Not trying to harsh Idaho’s potatoe buzz or whatever, but it got me thinking about other possible plates.

So I threw a couple together. I’m just waiting to hear back from their respective DMVs for approval. Wish me Luck!

Cheers,

Well dang it. Summer’s over now. Now time for me to fall into a crippling depression and hibernate until next spring. Can’t wait, can ya? Ah well, we will keep chugging along so I can at least give you all a taste of the new music that came out like three months ago. But hey, what else are you gonna do? Have a fun and festive fall friends!

Ninja Gun – Restless Rubes – *** – Pretty good, energetic power poppy album. Very well produced, and interesting, though I did not latch on to anything in particular. It’s got a good sound and I will probably revisit it at some point.

Roger Klug – More Help For Your Nerves – **** – One of the top releases so far this year. With an incredible energy and a bucketful of hooks, this album kicks off from the start and doesn’t stop kicking until the end. For the most part, it is great power pop, but he throws in some other musical styles, from showtunes to gypsy music and so on, which is cool. It’s so good!

Phil Keaggy & Randy Stonehill – Mystery Highway – ***1/2 – I have just recently delved deeply into the catalog of Phil Keaggy. It’s a mixed bag of guitar solos, beatle-esque vocals, interesting themes, some more standard christian-rock fare, and overall an interesting artist. This album really does everything I like about Phil Keaggy. It rocks, it has interesting themes, he even pulls out one of his classic Beatle-esque tunes with SUnday’s Child. Randy Stonehill, who I’m not too familiar with, really adds some more classic rock elements. Overall a fun, unique record, that stands tall among Keaggy’s other releases.

Art Brut – Art Brut vs. Satan – ***1/2 – A good, solid album from this band. They do their thing very well. Great, well thought out musical bed where the “singer” can lie comfortably and tell us all about his life and the things that’s he’s thinking. It hasn’t changed much over the course of three or so albums, but at the same time, do we want it to change? Keep it up fellas!

The Minus 5 – Killingsworth – *** – You never know quite what you’re going to get with a Minus 5 record. They have gone from power pop to alt country, and everywhere in between. What you do know, is that it will be an interesting ride. This latest effort is fairly poppy. Good songs, good lyrical content, and overall a good record.

Well dang it. Summer’s over now. Now time for me to fall into a crippling depression and hibernate until next spring. Can’t wait, can ya? Ah well, we will keep chugging along so I can at least give you all a taste of the new music that came out like three months ago. But hey, what else are you gonna do? Have a fun and festive fall friends!

Ninja Gun – Restless Rubes – *** – Pretty good, energetic power poppy album. Very well produced, and interesting, though I did not latch on to anything in particular. It’s got a good sound and I will probably revisit it at some point.

Roger Klug – More Help For Your Nerves – **** – One of the top releases so far this year. With an incredible energy and a bucketful of hooks, this album kicks off from the start and doesn’t stop kicking until the end. For the most part, it is great power pop, but he throws in some other musical styles, from showtunes to gypsy music and so on, which is cool. It’s so good!

Phil Keaggy & Randy Stonehill – Mystery Highway – ***1/2 – I have just recently delved deeply into the catalog of Phil Keaggy. It’s a mixed bag of guitar solos, beatle-esque vocals, interesting themes, some more standard christian-rock fare, and overall an interesting artist. This album really does everything I like about Phil Keaggy. It rocks, it has interesting themes, he even pulls out one of his classic Beatle-esque tunes with SUnday’s Child. Randy Stonehill, who I’m not too familiar with, really adds some more classic rock elements. Overall a fun, unique record, that stands tall among Keaggy’s other releases.

Art Brut – Art Brut vs. Satan – ***1/2 – A good, solid album from this band. They do their thing very well. Great, well thought out musical bed where the “singer” can lie comfortably and tell us all about his life and the things that’s he’s thinking. It hasn’t changed much over the course of three or so albums, but at the same time, do we want it to change? Keep it up fellas!

The Minus 5 – Killingsworth – *** – You never know quite what you’re going to get with a Minus 5 record. They have gone from power pop to alt country, and everywhere in between. What you do know, is that it will be an interesting ride. This latest effort is fairly poppy. Good songs, good lyrical content, and overall a good record.

By LitterART – www.litterart.wordpress.com

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August Natterer (Neter), "Wunder-Hirthe", vor 1919, Sammlung Prinzhorn/Heidelberg

Österreich wird nicht nur mit Sigmund Freud assoziiert, der das Menschenbild des 20. Jahrhunderts wesentlich mit geprägt hat. In Österreich befindet sich auch die heutige Gedenkstätte Schloss Hartheim – von 1940 bis 1944 eine der sechs Euthanasieanstalten des Dritten Reiches, in der im Zuge der Aktion T4 von den Nationalsozialisten die Ermordung behinderter Menschen als „lebensunwertes Leben“ vollzogen wurde. Dem organisierten Massenmord des Nationalsozialistischen Regimes sind zahlreiche Menschen mit Behinderungen, darunter auch KünstlerInnen,  zum Opfer gefallen. Sehen wir ein Mahnmal, ein DENKmal in ihrer Kunst! Gedenken wir der Opfer dieser schrecklichen Zeit! – - – - Machen wir uns bewusst, dass diese Zeiten noch gar nicht so lange her sind! Machen wir uns auch bewusst, dass sich die Umstände für die Betroffenen seitdem zum Glück radikal gewandelt haben. Zumindest in unserem Kulturkreis müssen Menschen mit Behinderungen nicht um ihr Leben fürchten. Im Idealfall können sie unter professioneller Betreuung mit guten Materialen in Ruhe arbeiten. Seit der Erfindung der Psychopharmaka im Jahre 1951 werden sie auch nicht mehr grausam in Tobräumen oder mittels Dauerbädern ruhig gestellt wie noch zu Prinzhorns Zeiten.

Art Brut, was ist das? Sieht man, unserer Zeit entsprechend, einmal rasch bei WIKIPEDIA nach, findet man folgende Definition:

Art Brut (franz. für unverbildete, rohe Kunst, auch etwa edelherbe Kunst) ist ein Sammelbegriff für autodidaktische Kunst von Laien, Kindern und Menschen mit geistiger Behinderung. Die Bezeichnung ging vom französischen Maler Jean Dubuffet aus, der sich eingehend mit einer naiven und antiakademischen Ästhetik beschäftigte. Art Brut ist weder eine Kunstrichtung noch eine Stilbezeichnung, sondern beschreibt eine Kunst jenseits etablierter Kunstformen und -strömungen. Im anglo-amerikanischen Sprachraum ist stattdessen der Begriff Outsider Art (“Außenseiter-Kunst”) gebräuchlich.

Die Wurzeln der ART BRUT reichen bis in die Psychiatrie des 19. Jahrhundert zurück. So hatte schon der Turiner Psychiater Cesare Lombroso in seinem Buch „Genio e follia“ (Genie und Irrsinn, dt. 1884) den Wahnsinn als Quelle außergewöhnlicher künstlerischer Begabung bezeichnet. In Schriftstellern wie Tasso, Rousseau, Hölderlin oder Kleist hatte Lombroso “Genies mit Geistesstörung” gesehen und sie mit klinischen Fällen von Wahnsinn verglichen. Bereits 1907 hatte der französische Psychiater Paul Meunier in seinem unter dem Pseudonym „Marcel Réja“ erschienenen Buch „L`art chez les fous“ die Werke einiger seiner Psychiatriepatienten gewürdigt – und zwar nicht nur unter diagnostischen, sondern auch unter ästhetischen Gesichtspunkten. Die Ansätze beider Autoren waren zu ihrer Zeit auf wenig Beachtung gestoßen. Im Jahre 1918 hatte Walter Morgenthaler seine Habilitationsschrift „Übergänge zwischen Zeichen und Schreiben bei Geisteskranken“ publiziert. Bekannt geworden ist der Schweizer Psychiater aber erst 1921 mit einer weiteren Publikation, der Monographie „Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler“. Darin hatte er den schizophrenen Psychiatrieinsassen Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930) und dessen Werk vorgestellt. Wölfli hatte eine 25.000-seitige Lebensgeschichte in Wort und Bild verfasst. Es war das erste Mal, dass ein Patient namentlich erwähnt und ein „Geisteskranker“ klar als Künstler bezeichnet worden war. Darin ist ein erster Schritt in Richtung wertschätzender Einbindung von Außenseiter-Kunst in die Gesellschaft zu sehen. Im Verlauf seiner späteren Arbeit in der Bernischen kantonalen Irrenanstalt Waldau hatte Morgenthaler rund 5000 Werke von über 280 Patienten gesammelt. Heute ist die „Sammlung Morgenthaler“, ehemals „Bildnerisches Schaffen von Patientinnen und Patienten“, in der „Stiftung Psychiatrie – Museum Bern“ untergebracht. Die Bedeutung Wölflis kommt wohl auch darin zum Ausdruck, dass er 1972 von Harald Szeemann auf der „documenta 5“ in Kassel gezeigt wird.

1922 erschien das Buch „Bildnerei der Geisteskranken“ von Hans Prinzhorn. Gerhard Roth konstatiert diesem Werk 2001, es habe gesellschaftlich verändernd gewirkt. Prinzhorns reich bebildertes Buch „Bildnerei der Geisteskranken“ traf jedenfalls den Zeitgeist. Es erregte großes Interesse bei Künstlern wie Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer, Pablo Picasso oder Alfred Kubin. Die Bilder von Else Blankenhorn hatten großen Einfluss auf den Expressionisten Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Einige der Arbeiten von Max Ernst haben direkte Bezüge zu den von Prinzhorn vorgestellten Patienten-Künstlern, vor allem zu jenen von August Natterer. In Natterers “Große Halluzination”, darunter “Der Wunder-Hirthe”, sind die Wurzeln des bildnerischen Surrealismus zu erkennen.

Vor allem Max Ernst machte Prinzhorns Buch in Paris, der damaligen Hauptstadt der internationalen Avantgarde, bekannt. Für die französischen Surrealisten hatte es den Stellenwert einer „Bibel“. Psychosen sind zu dieser Zeit „in“. Diese Außenseiter-Kunst wurde vor allem von den Surrealisten als eine “ursprüngliche Ausdruckskraft”, als eine unverfälschte Kunst, frei von allem akademischen und bildungsbürgerlichen Ballast empfunden. Längst verstorbene Künstler wie Vincent van Gogh wurden hoch stilisiert. Als dessen würdiger Nachfolger wurde der junge französische Schauspieler, Dramatiker, Regisseur, Zeichner, Dichter und Theater-Theoretiker Antonin Artaud – ab 1937 Patient in geschlossenen psychiatrischen Kliniken mit der Diagnose Schizophrenie – zu einer neuen Gallionsfigur.

Im Museum of Modern Art, New York, lief 1936 die Ausstellung “Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism”. Alfred Barr hatte darin auch Kunstwerke von Kindern und Geisteskranken gezeigt.

Ganz anders war die Situation kurz darauf in Deutschland. Die von Joseph Goebbels initiierte Wanderausstellung “Entartete Kunst” eröffnete im Jahr 1937 in München eine heftige Attacke gegen die moderne Kunst. Unter der Leitung von Adolf Ziegler, damaliger Präsident der Reichskammer der bildenden Künste, wurden 650 konfiszierte Kunstwerke aus 32 Museen gezeigt. Die Ausstellung wurde bis zum April 1941 in zwölf weiteren deutschen Städten gezeigt und von über 3 Millionen Menschen besucht. Unter den ausgestellten Werken befanden sich nicht nur die bekanntesten Maler der europäischen Moderne – von Nolde über Klee bis Picasso –, sondern auch einige namenlose Werke von “Verrückten”. Dabei handelte es sich um Arbeiten aus der Prinzhorn-Sammlung. Alles, was nicht ins kulturelle Verständnis der Nationalsozialisten passte, wurde als „entartet“ angesehen: Kunstrichtungen wie Dadaismus,  Expressionismus, Kubismus, Fauvismus, Impressionismus, Neue Sachlichkeit und Surrealismus, aber auch Formen in anderen kulturellen Ausdrucksweisen, wie Tanz, Literatur, Architektur oder Musik. Was die Nazis unter “deutscher Kunst“ verstanden, wurde in der parallel stattfindenden “Großen Deutschen Kunstausstellung” in München im “Haus der Deutschen Kunst” gezeigt.

Gleichzeitig setzte eine Art “künstlerische Säuberung” in den deutschen Museen ein. Man schätzt, dass 16.000–20.000 Kunstwerke in dieser Zeit zerstört oder gegen Devisen ins Ausland verkauft wurden. Vielen Künstlern, Museumsangestellten und Lehrern wurde Berufsverbot erteilt. Die von den Nationalsozialisten propagierte Auffassung von der “Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens” führte zur planmäßigen Tötung von Psychiatriepatienten. In einer dieser Tötungsanstalten, Grafeneck auf der Schwäbischen Alb, wurden ab 1940 etwa 10.000 Patienten vergast.

Dessen ungeachtet wurden und werden auch in der Nachkriegszeit Künstler oftmals als geisteskrank beschimpft. Dem entgegneten österreichische Künstler auf ihre Art. Oswald Oberhuber etwa ließ sich in den frühen 1970ern in Anstaltskleidung fotografieren.

Der Künstler Jean Dubuffet beschäftigte sich mit dem Phänomen der ursprünglichen Kreativität und der antiintellektuellen, vom Bildvokabular der Kinder, Naiven und „Geisteskranken inspirierten Kunst. Als Sammler wurde Dubuffet mit dem von ihm 1945 geprägten Begriff „Art Brut“ identifiziert. 1948 gründete er nach einigen ersten Ausstellungen mit einem kleinen Kreis von Gleichgesinnten, darunter auch der Surrealist André Breton, in Paris den Verein „Compagnie de l`Art Brut“. Auf die Entwicklung der Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert haben künstlerische Ausdrucksformen von „Außenseitern“ einen wesentlichen Einfluss genommen. Man sah in diesen Kunstformen ein „weiter zu verarbeitendes Rohmaterial“, spontane Äußerungen mit unkonventionellem Blick auf die Welt und ihre Wirklichkeit. Der fließende Begriff „Art Brut“ wird auch heute noch als Dubuffets geistiges Eigentum von den aktuellen Kustoden des Museums verteidigt und nur auf die Werke seiner Sammlung beschränkt – natürlich nicht ohne Kritik!

Die aus ganz anderen Entstehungsbedingungen hervorgegangene Kunst, wie sie uns etwa in der Prinzhorn-Sammlung begegnet, kann nicht mit dem für „professionelle“ Kunst gültigen Maßstab gemessen werden. Diese „Bildnereien“ sind gänzlich unabhängig von jenem Kunstwollen und Kunstkontext entstanden; und zwar als eine reale, existentielle Notwendigkeit sich auszudrücken. Wie der Hamburger Kunstwissenschaftler Michael Lingner bemerkt, liegt eine Gefahr in allen leider heute oft so „modernen“ Bemühungen – auch schon in jenen Jean Dubuffets – die Kunst von Menschen mit Psychiatrieerfahrung aus unserem Kunst- und Kulturverständnis heraus nicht mimetisch, sondern im Sinne der Mimikry nachzuempfinden. Das klägliche Ergebnis daraus könne nur allzu leicht eine total verwässerte, erkünstelte, hypehafte Primitivität sein.

Bestätigung für die Qualität „seiner“ Künstler soll direkt von Dubuffet der Wiener Psychiater Leo Navratil bekommen haben. Navratil hat sich in der Landesnervenheilanstalt Maria Gugging in Klosterneuburg vor allem um die Erforschung und Förderung der sogenannten „zustandsgebundenen Kunst“, also Kunst von Insassen psychiatrischer Anstalten, verdient gemacht. Er erschuf eine besondere Art der Therapie. Navratil strebte mit der Veröffentlichung der Werke eine zumindest künstlerische Gleichberechtigung an. Ganz im Sinne des Integrationsgedankens, versuchte er durch Verkäufe und Ausstellungen Anerkennung und Wertschätzung der Gesellschaft für die Künstler zu erreichen. 1965 gab er sein erstes Buch „Schizophrenie und Kunst“ heraus. Künstler wie Arnulf Rainer und Alfred Hrdlicka wurden nach Gugging eingeladen und lernten dort Johann Hauser, Rudolf Limberger u. a. kennen. 1970 findet die erste Ausstellung der Gugginger Künstler in der Galerie Nächst St. Stephan in Wien statt.

Österreich erweist sich in seiner jüngsten Geschichte ebenso als fruchtbarer Boden für alle an der Schnittstelle von sozialer und medizinischer Betreuung gelegenen Ansätze, aus denen heraus Kunst entstehen kann. Hier sind seit Jahrzehnten bedeutende Künstler wie Arnulf Rainer, Franz Ringel, Peter Pongratz, Alfred Hrdlicka tätig, die sich einerseits für Outsider-Art bzw. Art Brut und ihre schöpferischen Künstler-KollegInnen einsetzen, andererseits teils selbst bemerkenswerte Sammlungen besitzen. Innerhalb der jüngeren österreichischen Künstlerschaft haben seit 1990 vor allem die Zwillingsschwestern Christine und Irene Hohenbüchler die kontinuierliche Zusammenarbeit mit behinderten Menschen sowie mit Menschen mit Psychiatrieerfahrung, mit Strafgefangenen und Kindern praktiziert.

Die anlässlich des Freud-Jubiläumsjahres 2006 konzipierte Wanderausstellung „Die Kunst von innen – von der Kraft des Unbewussten“ hat einen Überblick über jene Szene gegeben, die sich in Österreich mit den künstlerischen Schöpfungen von Menschen mit psychosozialen und mehrfachen Beeinträchtigungen auseinandersetzt und diese fördert. Angelica Bäumer, die Kuratorin dieser in Österreich und im Ausland gezeigten Ausstellung, hat in der von ihr 2007 herausgegebenen Publikation unter Titel „Kunst von innen – Art Brut in Austria“ die Kunstentwicklung von Adolf Wölfli über die Sammlung Prinzhorn bis zu Jean Dubuffet, dem Begründer des Begriffes „Art Brut“, erläutert und die spezifische Szene in Österreich vorgestellt. Das von Leo Navratil gegründete, heute von Johann Feilacher geleitete „Haus der Künstler“ in Gugging setzte wesentliche Impulse zur Anerkennung der Kunst von Menschen mit besonderen Bedürfnissen. Auch Institutionen wie die Caritas, die Diakonie, die Lebenshilfe, Jugend am Werk, Promente, sowie zahlreiche kleinere Organisationen haben Ateliers eingerichtet.

Es wäre wünschenswert, träten mehr Vertreter der professionellen Kunstszene in einen Dialog mit künstlerisch-kreativen Menschen und erzeugten gemeinsam mit diesen PartnerInnen künstlerische Werke, die sie anschließend gleichberechtigt neben eigenen Objekten präsentierten.

Besucher und Besucherinnen können gerade in den faszinierenden Werken der wenigen ernsthaften ART BRUT-Ausstellungen Zugänge zu Problemstellungen finden, mit welchen sie sich für gewöhnlich nie beschäftigen würden. Vielleicht stellen manche von ihnen auch ihr eigenes, nicht selten bedenkliches Kunst- und Welt-Bild in Frage, das nicht selten von althergebrachten Vorstellungen geprägt ist, die um fundiertes Können, gesunden Menschenverstand und Volksnähe kreisen.

AKTUELLE LINKS

Admont, Stift Admont, AUSSTELLUNG SAMMLUNG PRINZHORN

http://www.stiftadmont.at/deutsch/museum/museum/prinzhorn.php

Admont, Stift Admont, SCHÖPFUNGEN, Interdisziplinäres Symposion

Wien, Haus der Kunst, ART BRUT AUS JAPAN

http://www.wien.info/de/sightseeing/museen-ausstellungen/highlights/art-brut-japan

Maria Gugging, ART / BRUT CENTER

http://www.gugging.org/

St. Florian Feuerwehrmuseum, ART BRUT IM WANDEL

http://www.feuerwehrmuseum.at/shop/shop.php?detail=1228485422

NS-Tötungsanstalt HARTHEIM

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS-Tötungsanstalt_Hartheim

C’est l’histoire d’une obscure commune rurale du Massif Central, propulsée au fil des derniers mois au rang de centre vivant de l’art contemporain. C’est l’histoire d’un poète qui se propose un beau matin d’ « euthanasier Thanatos » (la mort en grec) par une fresque qui atteindra 27 mètres. C’est l’histoire, finalement, de la querelle des anciens et des modernes, version France (très très) profonde.

Au commencement était le bégaiement épars du sensible occidental. Ces bribes, fragments indéterminés d’une modernité prise dans son processus d’auto-engloutissement, chacun les croise en son séjour, les ordonne de son mieux, ou cherche à s’en désaisir : vieilles brosse à dents, poupées plastiques, bottins divers, téléphones hors d’usage, jouets oubliés, batteries de voiture, débris alimentaires, tout ce qui s’use, tout ce qui prétend ne pas s’user, et retourne à ce poudroiement innommable, pour lequel l’homme moderne a inventé un lieu : la poubelle.

L’art brut, depuis longtemps, a réalisé l’Aufhebung, l’abrogation de ces matériaux qui en est également la conservation et la relève, dans une démarche dont la dénonciation de la frénésie consumériste est indissociable. Mais d’oeuvre en oeuvre, d’installation en installation plutôt, puisque le propos est moins de créer que de suspendre le statut d’un ensemble d’objets prééxistants, on abouche au même épuisement du réel, attesté phénoménologiquement dans la frustration du spectateur : qu’est-ce qui, dans cet art des choses im-mondes, détachées de notre monde, est en jeu ? La mise en scène de l’usure du désir par le désir? La vie, quand elle cesse de vivre la vie? Tentative de réponse.

L’installation Thanatos euh! euh! euthanasié a vu le jour par la malice d’Henri Grange, poète (dé)localisé en ce paisible village de Grandrif tirant son nom d’un ruisselet qui y dégringole des sombres forêts avoisinantes, auteur du joli recueil « J’aime armer mon coeur d’un amour qui désarme » (Arco, 1983). Picorant dans la zone des bacs à ordures bétonnés communaux, qu’il tient pour le sanctuaire artistique local, dans les déchetteries environnantes, dans son patrimoine éclectique surtout, il entreprend au début de l’été 2009 une fresque qui couvrira petit à petit le mur faisant face à sa maison, limitant une ruelle sans issue. La municipalité, s’élevant le 4 juillet à l’âcmè du politique en tant que tel (c’est-à-dire compris, avec Carl Schmitt, comme instance de discrimination de l’ami et de l’ennemi), déchaîne ses foudres, lui intimant par recommandé, suite à « plusieurs réclamations de riverains » et « après consultation du conseil » de « libérer l’espace public », sous peine de poursuites. La gendarmerie, cela va de soi, est en copie.

Mais le fautif court toujours ; et son installation reçoit chaque jour la visite de quelques curieux, amateurs ou journalistes locaux. C’est qu’il importe, précisément, que cette oeuvre se situe sur le territoire communal : dans la continuité de l’espace public, ce vortex disloquant le monde d’objets ouvre une brêche dont la condition d’apparaître est précisément qu’elle se trouve « au coin de la rue ». Alors que dans un musée la scénographie redouble en quelque sorte l’acte artistique de l’installation, Thanatos euh! euh! euthanasié surgit dans la suite d’un monument aux morts, d’un grand Christ douloureux, du chevet de l’église, ordonnés du coup à l’abord de cette expérience : avoir un pied dans le réel funéraire, et l’autre qui glisse.

Le caractère intempestif de Thanatos euh! euh! euthanasié prend alors une dimension politique. Simplement exposée, l’installation eût assumé la gaze anodine qui nimbe les productions du 1% culturel. Imposée, elle convoque le promeneur à une exigence neuve : celle de consentir au réel dévoilé – les journalistes de la Gazette du cru l’ont bien compris, qui écrivent que l’oeuvre a le mérite de « ne laisser personne indifférent » ! Car cet amas ne fait pas autre chose, finalement, que de restaurer des objets voués à la disparition pour mettre le spectateur face à leur ensemble, et par là face une forme de vérité du monde qu’il habite. Prise de conscience écologique, dénonciation de notre rapport dévoyé à l’outil… chacun y trouvera ensuite son manger.

Mais Thanatos euh! euh! euthanasié ne propose pas seulement de préserver quelques bégaiements du réel de son inéluctable disparition ; toute ouverte à une transcendance qui s’atteste dans l’évocation d’une mariée, dans le futur arc-en-ciel qui viendra couronner le mur en parpaings surplombant l’installation, et bien évidemment dans la croix, manifeste dérisoire et incontournable du rachat au coeur de l’immonde, l’installation emporte également une dimension proprement théurgique, dans la mesure où la mort de la mort s’y avoue dans l’ordonnancement de presque riens. Le caillou, le bout de chiffon, ces bribes indicibles, ne disent-ils pas plus adéquatement ce qui, produisant toute détermination, n’en peut recevoir aucune ? Et le petit ordre bizarre de ces pauvretés ne célèbre-t-il pas plus justement, c’est-à-dire en toute dissemblance, le principe de tout ordre ? La célèbre assertion prêtée à Flaubert, « Dieu est dans le détail », peut se comprendre en ce double sens : que dans le plus petit se révèle mieux le plus grand, par apophase ; et que le soin que l’homme y apporte le rapproche du divin. A l’âge du global, de l’instantané, de la fausse grandeur, voilà qui pourrait bien faire véritablement scandale…

Voir l’installation

Article paru sur Le Post le 21 octobre