tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90552492024-03-13T09:31:35.046-04:00Gary LucasGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.comBlogger169125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-42320538032281709842010-11-28T17:43:00.000-05:002010-11-28T17:43:52.736-05:00And If My Thought Dreams Could Be Seen...Readers of this blog probably noticed I haven't posted in quote some time.<br />
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Quite rightly...I just got weary of writing them frankly, and the action has moved for the moment to Facebook (boo hiss boo) if you are interested in following my peregrinations as I post frequently there.<br />
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But as I am about to exhaust my alotted amount of new "friends" pretty shortly (approaching 5000 now) not sure where I will pop up next...<br />
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but in any case I will continue to reliably update my website with the valued assistance of web mistress Tanya at http:/www.garylucas.com with all sorts of goodies...<br />
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So--see you in the next world<br />
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(and don't be late)<br />
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xxLove<br />
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GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-32594605144540124302010-04-18T21:50:00.020-04:002010-04-29T18:59:47.397-04:00He was a Friend of MineSad sad sad news at the recent death of Charlie Gillett (Richard Williams in The Guardian <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/mar/17/charlie-gillett-obituary">wrote a fine obit</a>), and what is there to add really but that he was truly a major force for good in music...and also that I was pretty chuffed that he liked my work :-)...<br />
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A total gentleman, I was honoured to have Charlie as a friend and supporter...Charlie invited me as a guest on his long-running BBC radio program several times, first time with <a href="http://www.myspace.com/peterstampfelmusic">Peter Stampfel</a> when we over in the UK doing a Du-Tels tour at the end of 2001...next after my "Edge of Heaven" 30's Chinese pop album came out in 2002, I was his guest that time at a special party for all his longtime London fans broadcast live from The Kashmir Club off Baker Street on the occasion of his <a href="http://www.charliegillett.com/playlist.php?date=23March02">30th anniversary BBC show</a>, on a bill with his other special guests the wonderful Fado singer Mariza, Nick Lowe, and Nick Hornsby...I remember performing <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIskunRKR0Q">"The Mad World"</a> on that one (one of the late lamented long gone John Peel's favoreets too, JP broadcast the studio version of that particular edge 'o heaven nugget on one of his last shows in fact)... <br />
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I was Charlie's guest a third time a year or two later when my second album with Dutch lutist Jozef Van Wissem "The Universe of Absence" had just come out, Jos wasn't there but I got Charlie to spin a track or two from our album and also performed live some of the music from Jacques Tati's "Mon Oncle" and "M. Hulot's Holiday" on the programme...always enjoyed playing Radio Ping Pong with Charlie which was kind of a variant of Stump the Band; you'd serve a volley of sounds in his direction and he'd lob a fast one back at ya, first time on with Peter I brought several choice cuts to share with him and his listening audience (which encompassed folks all over the globe) including Sun Ra and Yochanon's "The Sun Man Speaks", Bob Dylan and The Band's gorgeous Basement Tape outtake <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNHKtabqxMM">"Banks of the Royal Canal"</a>, also Beefheart's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCmTw5ckN-k">"Diddy Wah Diddy"</a>....may not have all been his cuppa (particularly the last track) but I wasn't about to pull my punches either, which he obviously appreciated :-)...Charlie will go down with Peel as amongst the most influential UK DJ's ever to enlighten the populace/slam dance cosmopolis (do the worm on necropolis)...He was a sweet and gracious guy who nearly single-handedly invented the genre of World Music as we know it today, as well as writing such influential tomes as his masterful early rock treatise "The Sound of the City" (which I remember laying on Adrian Sherwood at his house in East London at the same time as I played him Walter Gibbons' incredible mix of Arthur Russell's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFmjCyaGXwE">"Let's Go Swimming"</a> which I had vetted for release moonlighting as the A&R guy for the little Indie label that could, Upside Records in NYC...check out the latest MOJO for more on Arthur... and Tim Lawrence's cool new biography, <a href="http://www.timlawrence.info/arthur_russell/index.php">"Hold On To Your Dreams"</a>)...<br />
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Just heard about Mike Zwerin passing too (oh nooooooooo), James Campbell wrote a touching <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/18/mike-zwerin-obituary">obit</a> in The Guardian....very creative trumpeter/trombonist who played with Miles circa "Birth of the Cool" live, also Archie Shepp ("The Magic of Ju-Ju") and many other greats, and a fantastic writer who wrote some wonderful books about this and that, esp. one about the Swing Era in Germany during the reign of the Nazis...also over many years wrote a must-read column for the International Herald Tribune profiling musicians passing through his home base of Paris, he <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/inttrb.jpg">wrote on me in fact</a> after my friend British expat/Paris resident/mover and shaker Karel Beer introduced us...you can read the full piece <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/style/26iht-zwer.2.t.html">here</a>...He was an acerbic funny sensitive and hip Jewish intellectual, and I will really miss the guy...<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/18/mike-zwerin-obituary">another light going out</a>...<br />
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A lot of water under the bridge since my last posting almost 2 months ago, I have been terribly busy needless to say but would like to catch up now for all my dear readers...<br />
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February 12th went to see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Birkin">Jane Birkin</a> perform a wonderful show at Florence Gould Hall here, I have a soft spot for Jane ever since hearing and purchasing while still in high school Serge Gainsbourg's 1969 duet with his then wife Jane on the infamous <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bNsI9eXpAc&NR=1">"Je T'aime Moi Non Plus"</a> which came out in the States as a single on Fontana...a single which served me in good stead a few years later when I curated the celebrated Porno Night at Yale for the Yale Film Society, of which I was a director, "Je T'Aime" was part of the warmup music I played from the projection booth as folks filed into Linsley-Chittenden 101 before we got down to the serious bizness of projecting "Deep Throat" (which we did non-stop for a record 40 plus shows over one weekend)...I also was happily subjected to a playing of her fantastic <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by1Q_8AEkfA">"Arabesque"</a> album all night long a few years ago for a similar number of spins on a from dusk till dawn drive from Moscow to St. Petersburg courtesy my guy Andrey Borisov, Exotica Records label boss who put out my "Coming Clean" album over there...and she was in fine form in NYC on this wintry night, she looked radiant in a kind of Patti Smith "Horses" ensemble replete with loosened tie and white shirt (a tie, she made sure to point out to the adoring crowd," that hangs nearly all the way down to my, uh..."--gazing southward... "my shoes!"), and she was in excellent voice throughout the show, hall was packed to the rafters despite an inexplicable media blackout of notices for the show in the local press, she referenced the recent success of her daughter Charlotte and also spent a long time speaking out on behalf of jailed Burmese dissident <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi">Aung San Suu Kyi</a>... ran into super gamine-esque avant-film maker <a href="http://marielosier.net/">Marie Losier</a>, who has just about finished up a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JUqrPwe7Lo">new documentary</a> about my friend Genesis P. Orridge, and turns out she is a big JB fan...I love Jane--she's still got it...<br />
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Another fun night out in Manhattan Caroline and I went off to hear the <a href="http://bangonacan.org/all_stars">Bang On a Can All-Stars</a>, the crackerjack new music ensemble who were doing all sorts of new premieres at Merkin Hall under the broadcast aegis of John Schaefer's New Sounds ...the hall was packed for some outstanding playing by my pal Mark Stewart (not the On-U sound rabble rouser, rather the NY session guitarist) and I heard some intriguing new work including a bright shiny piece by the guitarist from trendy band 'o the mo' Dirty Projectors that sounded like tinker toys being assembled with chattering marimba to the fore, and several lovely film and music pieces commissioned specially for the ensemble ending with a swirling minimalist aural swirligig of a piece by Michael Nyman cued to a rapidfire film of old Noo Yawk...<br />
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March came in like a lion and then it was off to Holland to perform at the Cross-Linx Festival in Eindhoven and Utrecht with a wonderful conglomeration of Dutch avant, rock and classical musicians--<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Josef Van Wissem, Frank Veenstra, and GL, Cross-Linx Festival Utrecht Holland, 3/4/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/jozef01_1003.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/jozef01_1003_100.jpg" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary and Jozef Van Wissem rock out at the Cross-Linx Festival, Musiekcentrum Vrendenburg, Utrecht Holland 3/4/10</span><br />
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including my old friend and collaborator ace lutist <a href="http://www.myspace.com/vanwissem">Jozef Van Wissem</a>, the great graphic artist and music experimentalist <a href="http://www.rikvaniersel.nl/">Rik Van Iersel</a>, Colin from Kyteman, hot Dutch band of the moment, DJ DNA from great Dutch rap-rock ensemble Urban Dance Squad, Dutch madman/vocal improvisor <a href="http://www.jaapblonk.com/">Jaap Blonk</a>, festival organizer/guitarist/singer Frank Veenstra, the fetching <a href="http://www.heetbrood.nl/">Heet Brood</a> girls and a host of other wacky musicians...Theo Van Rock was engineering too (ex-Rollins Band)...we wowed the crowds at both halls we performed our hour long set at, and the whole shebang got a <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/volkskraant1003.jpg">rave review</a> in the Dutch national newspaper De Volkskrant...I finished my sojourn in lovely Holland with a stay in Amsterdam with my old friend Flip Nagler who heads up <a href="http://www.ngnprodukties.nl/">NGN Films</a>...he made a documentary on my back in the 90's entitled "Guitar Unbound" for the Dutch Arts Channel Kunst -Kanaal...and he is making a new updated one on me currently...had a nice lunch with Lieven Bertels, artistic director of the Holland Festival, who initiated my <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtL6GG1Cftw">"J'Accuse"</a> collaboration at the Holland Festival last summer with <a href="http://rezanamavar.com/">Reza Namavar</a> and Ensemble Kameleon ... and had pannekoeken with stroop waffel sirop (mmmmmmm) with <a href="http://www.myspace.com/codekloet">Co de Kloet</a>, my friend the Zappa/Beefheart expert who initiated a commission I received from the Dutch national radio NPS a couple years ago collaborating on a score for the last lengthy interview with Don Van Vliet, entitled "I Have a Cat"...I finished my stay by giving a masterclass solo acoustic performance for the Musik Conservatorum at their new Music Matrix Performance Space which was organized by my guy Dawa Records label chief <a href="http://www.myspace.com/jackpisters">Jack Pisters</a>, you can see a link to clips from this performance up on my <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/soloac">new solo acoustic page</a>, elegantly designed by my wonderful webmaster <a href="http://panacea42.com/">Tanya Weiman</a>...<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Rik's American Cafe: Gary at dinner at Rik Van Iersel's house, Eindhoven Holland 3/1/10<br />
l to r: Erik Vanderberge, Agnes De Haan, GL, Joshua Van Iersel, Teun Jansen, Theo Van Rock, Rik Van Iersel, Frank Veenstra, and Nathanael Boelen</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/rik1003.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/rik1003_100.jpg" /></a><br />
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I headed to Munich directly afterwards to catch some of the <a href="http://www.adg-europe.com/">TNT Theater Company's latest productions</a> at Amerika Haus courtesy my friend Steve Aaronson, the troupe's executive producer and also head of Costa Rica's gourmet coffee and chocolate consortium Cafe Britt (for a taste thrill par excellence, try their <a href="http://www.cafebritt.com/white-chocolate-coffee-beans">white chocolate coffee beans</a>)--saw some great plays including a compelling 4 person "Don Quixote" in Spanish, an Edgar Allen Poe triptych, and "The Picture of Dorian Grey" expertly recast and staged by UK director ex-pat Paul Stebbings...Munchen was fun as always and Steve and I and his Israeli friend Hadra did some cool sight-seeing including skating out to the perimeter of a frozen Alpine lake amongst breath-taking wintry scenic views, and a visit to the monumental <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymphenburg_Palace">Nymphenburg Palace</a>, not unakin to The Hermitage in Saint Petersburg for sheer bravado of scope and design, housing some of the rarest treasures of antiquity and more... one of the best things there was the Hall of Beauties where I found festooned some of the fairest members of the court of King Ludwig of Bavaria (and his son Mad King Ludwig)--including a portrait of the actual über-groupie <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lola_Montez">Lola Montez</a>, famed Irish turn-of-the century courtesan who ensnared King Ludwig Of Bavaria in her clutches (amongst other luminaries...including Franz Liszt)...<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Portrait of Lola Montez hanging in Nymphenburg Palace Hall of Beauties, Munich</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/montez.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/montez_100.jpg" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Have a cuppa...Gary at Cafe Gitane in the Jane Hotel NYC, 3/13/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gitane1003.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gitane1003_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">photo by Honey Twigg Aldrich | Click to enlarge</span><br />
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Back to NYC for a few days then off again to start a another European <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/soloac">solo acoustic</a> tour, my preferred mode for playing out these days...Paris was simply lovely, and ensconced in my favorite Terrass Hotel on Saturday night March 20th I met my old friends the photographers lovely Laura Brunelliere and US expat Mark Lyon for dinner and then off to Centre Pompidou where my dear friend legendary filmmaker cinematographer <a href="http://www.mayslesfilms.com/">Albert Maysles</a> ("Gimme Shelter", "Grey Gardens", et Al.) was being feted over a month long retrospective of his works, Al was there and was in fine form doing a Q & A after a screening of his and his brother David's seminal documentary "Salesman" ("Biblebelts worn from here and after all were born in the know"--Van Dyke Parks "Public Domain")...full confession: I scored the Academy Award-nominated Maysles Films/HBO documentary "Lalee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton" in 2000 and really got to know this great American artist...good news is that HBO have agreed to release "Lalee's Kin" by popular demand to the home DVD market in a couple months, it won't be available in stores but you will be able to order a custom burn of the film on DVD directly from Amazon.com ...meanwhile you can enjoy these clips from the film featuring my score <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xVyYjD34o">here</a>...<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary and his friend legendary filmmaker/cinematographer Albert Maysles ("Gimme Shelter", "Grey Gardens") at his month long retrospective at Centre Pompidou Paris 3/20/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/maysles1003.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/maysles1003_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">photo by Mark Lyon | Click to enlarge</span><br />
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Later that night I went to the Sunside Jazz Club near the Beaubourg where I've performed three or four times previously to catch a few numbers by the ensemble of my pal <a href="http://www.yvinek.com/">Daniel Yvinec</a>, the great acoustic bassist and the director of the Orchestre National Du Jazz, he released a cool album last year featuring his arrangements of songs by Robert Wyatt with performances by luminaries like my friend Yael Naim, Daniel sat in with me a couple days later when I performed solo acoustic at Le Point Ephemere, a fantastic new club near the legendary Hotel Du Nord off the Quai de Valmy, we played a duo of "Our Love is Here to Stay" and then an acoustic "Grace" where we joined by the gorgeous chanteuse/actrice <a href="http://www.melissamars.com/">Melissa Mars</a>, Melissa was fresh off of an endless tour gracing stages all over France performing a leading role in the hit musical "Mozart L'Opera Rock", and she sang a really powerful version of the well-known Buckley/Lucas song and also a tres charmante version of a song we co-wrote, "Angel" which was featured on her last album for French Universal...<br />
my friend the great French singer/songwriter <a href="http://www.myspace.com/silvainvanot">Silvain Vanot</a> also sat in and did a beautiful rendition of my song "Jericho" as well as opening the night with an amazing set from his crack band which featured the legendary Henry Cow bassist John Greaves who currently resides in France...and my old friend saxophonist/composer <a href="http://www.myspace.com/renaudgabrielpion">Renaud Pion</a> jumped on stage with his enormous baritone sax and let 'er rip for an incendiary "One Man's Meat"...what a great night!...inda house were old French friends and fans including <a href="http://www.yaelweb.com/">Yael Naim and David Donatien</a>, filmmaker Marie Bordaz, jazz singer Minnie Picoux, beautiful scenemaker mover and shaker Cheyenne Schiavone, French music journalist/legend Gilles Tordjmann, impresario UK expat <a href="http://www.anythingmatters.com/">Karel Beer</a>, old friends Julien Simon and Nick Healing and his lovely wife, and all the way from Taipei my dear friends the artist Jacques Picoux and his partner Christophe Tseng (<a href="http://www.admiringgongli.com/">Gong Li</a>'s manager)...<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Outside Le Point Ephemere in Paris after Gary's solo show 3/22/10, l to r: Renaud Pion, Daniel Yvinec, GL, David Donatien, and Yael Naim</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Melissa Mars rocks out performing "Grace" with Gary and Daniel Yvinec at Gary's solo show at Le Point Ephemere Paris, 3/22/10</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Superb French saxophonist Renaud Pion whips it out for "Dance of Destiny", Le Point Ephemere Paris, 3/22/10</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">The great French singer/songwriter Silvain Vanot after performing Gary's song "Jericho" at Le Point Ephemere, Paris 3/22/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/vanot1003.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/vanot1003_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">photos by Mark Lyon | Click to enlarge</span><br />
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Next day it was off by train to Lausanne where I had a lovely concert at the Le Lezard Bleu, which as packed to gills with Swiss fans, and where I was joined onstage for a number by my old friend Swiss avant-guitarist Gerald Zbinden, who I met some years ago playing the SKIF Festival ni St. Petersburg which resulted in us making an album together in Lausanne actually, "Down the Rabbit Hole" which garnered all sorts of <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/GaryMojoMar09.jpg">amazing reviews</a> when released last year...the kids dug my set to death, I did many encores, the club staff was incredible and I made some amazing new friends,including American Corinne Rubin, who showed up at my show in Boston a couple weeks later...I stayed the night in Gerald's chalet in Gruyere and then took the train to Zurich where I flew to lovely Dresden, one of my favorite places to play in Germany to play the 6th Jazzwelt Festival courtesy of my guy Steffen Wilde of Subtone Concerts...that night I had a concert at the Theater Schauburg, a beautiful old Art Deco theater where I performed a double bill of <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/surr">"Sounds of the Surreal"</a> and also a solo acoustic set...the gig got a <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/DNN_review.pdf">rave review</a> in the Dresdner Neuste Nachrichten newspaper...next day I went exploring the Old Town with members of NYC avant-jazz ensemble Gutbucket who were also in to play the festival, a shimmering nearly summery day found us outdoors in several cafes and I also took them on a grilled bratwurst hunt (success!), we visited the nearby historische museum, which housed an incredible display of medieval weaponry and armour...and then that night I sat in at the new Jazz Club Tonne (played the old one years ago, housed in an old keller/bunker--hell I've played 5 or 6 times in Dresden in joints like the Scheune and the Star Club) with Dutch vocalese avant-gardist Jaap Blonk and really tore it up...<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary at La Java (named after Serge Gainsbourg's "La Javanaise"), Lausanne Switzerland, 3/23/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/lajava1003.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/lajava1003_100.jpg" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary grows extra fingers for the 6th Jazz Welten Festival, Theater Schauburg, Dresden 3/24/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/kino1_1003.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/kino1_1003_100.jpg" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Outside Kino Schauburg in Dresden before performing "Sounds of he Surreal" and a solo acoustic concert, 3/24/10</span><br />
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Net day I flew to Marseille--what a spectacular city, I always love to perform there!! The club co-directors Olivier Maurel and Chantal Vasseur really made me feel quite at home at their amazing avant-music venue "L'embobineuse" with spectacular home cooked meals, I had a lovely set with a guest appearance on sax by Francois Billard, the legendary French leader of Barricade, the prog rock bank which also boasted my old friend the late French avant-composer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Zazou">Hector Zazou</a> in the lineup--and spent the night at Chantal's enchanting chalet by the sea overlooking the harbor of Marseille...wow, some view :-) The next night saw a fantastic prog metal band called Drone Juice, three young guys who brought something vital and new to a form I have found incredibly trite over the last few years--ooh la la, happy to report the live music scene in Marseille is alive and kicking...<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;"> View of Marseille harbor from Chantal Vasseur's pad, 3/27/10</span><br />
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Home again home again and wasnt home for very long before my dear fried the great Spanish spoken word artist <a href="http://www.brunogalindo.com/">Bruno Galindo</a> came to town and we gave a <a href="http://www.myspace.com/garylucasandbrunogalindo">stellar duo performance</a> at the BAM Cafe...Bruno is one of my favorite collaborators in the world, we first got together a few years ago for a <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/jornada.pdf">spectacular show</a> in the major city park of Mexico City, Casa del Lago, under a tent in the midst of a thunder and lightning storm, I credit him with first bringing me into the Latin American scene which resulted in debut gigs for me in Brazil, Colombia and Cuba in the last year...the night before we went on the legendary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Fass">Bob Fass</a>' WBAI show "Radio Unnameable" and shpritzed acoustic for a couple hours, the BAM show next night had me roll out the electronics and the joint was packed and magic was in the air and the whole affair was Spanish by Spanish film makers Caroline Conejero and her friends, in the house were amazing Russian artists <a href="http://www.metro33.org/">Valera and Natasha Cherkashin</a> who have done an incredible exhibition and also published a series of art photo collages of underground metro stations all over the world, I had lunch at the White Horse with them a few days later and we are planning a big collaboration soon stay tuned...<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Russian artists Natasha and Valera Cherkashin and GL, BAM Cafe Brooklyn, 4/2/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bam1004_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bam1004_1_100.jpg" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Natasha Cherkashin, Spanish poet Bruno Galindo, film maker Caroline Conejero, and GL at BAM Cafe 4/2/10</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br />
<br />
Back home and I played at a screening of my pal Sebastian Doggart's new documentary <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SFGLtvVWO8">"American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi"</a> in the screening room of the Tribeca Grand Hotel, I contributed music to the score of this hard-hitting look at Condoleeza Rice (the second installment of Sebastian's obsessive triology which started with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwErHTP6ekk">"Courting Condi"</a>)...at the after-party, attended by many of Sebastian's friends and colleagues as well as his lovely girlfriend <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Kunstler">Emily Kunstler</a>, <br />
I performed solo acoustic and was joined on "Grave" by lovely singer <a href="http://www.myspace.com/alexlashmusic">Alexandra Lash</a>...<br />
<br />
Then I hopped up to Boston for a solo acoustic concert at The Magic Room, run by my friend Des Desmond who was a founding member of the legendary Beantown band The Bentmen...the show was the major music pick in the Boston Phoenix that week, and you can read an interview by my pal Steve Beeber ("The Heebie Jeebie's at CBGB's"--great book) <a href="http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/onthedownload/archive/2010/04/02/from-the-magic-band-to-the-magic-room-a-chat-with-gary-lucas.aspx">here</a>...the show, replete with spectacular projections on me/behind me courtesy of Steve Grise, was one of my best performances ever, and in the house was my pal the Pulitzer Prize winning poet <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Wright">Franz Wright</a> and his lovely wife, Franz laid a hand written poem on me that he had brought specially for my show (he rarely goes out, the hermit--READ THIS MAN!!) which I've carried around with me in my wallet like a condom ever since...I'm tempted to quote from it, hell, I am tempted to transcribe the whole thing right here, but I daren't without checking with the guy...oh well...keep watching this space!! Also in attendance was my artist friend <a href="http://www.donaldshambroom.com/">Don Shambroom</a>, whom I know since my days at Yale, and who has created some powerful new work...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">My aim is true: The Magic Room, Boston 4/10/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/mroom1004_5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/mroom1004_5_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Punch the Clock: Gary at The Magic Room, Boston 4/10/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/mroom1004_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/mroom1004_3_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">The Magic Room, Boston, 4/10/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/mroom1004_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/mroom1004_6_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">The Magic Room, Boston, 4/10/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/mroom1004_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/mroom1004_2_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">The Magic Room, Boston, 4/10/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/mroom1004_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/mroom1004_1_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Pulitzer prize winning poet Franz Wright, The Magic Room's Des Desmond, GL at The Magic Room, Boston 4/10/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/mroom1004_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/mroom1004_4_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">photos by Catherine Rogers | Click to enlarge</span><br />
<br />
Coming home, baby... I did a wonderful gig at Local 269 in the East Village (formerly Meow Mix) with the Brazilian singer <a href="http://www.myspace.com/mossabildnermusic">Mossa Bildner</a>...she is a really creative free vocalist with operatic influences thrown into the mix, and we did a set that partook of my space and electronic guitar textures fully, the joint was full with old friends like Charles Blass and his lovely new (and very enceinte) girlfriend and it was really appreciative crowd, the tape of the show sounds great...<br />
<br />
In the middle of all this frenetic activity 2 albums came out on the Knitting Factory label on March 16th, distributed by Sony/Red...the first, Chase the Devil, an album of spiritual roots music with the vocalist Dean Bowman, garnered some nice reviews out of the box, from <a href="http://new.us.music.yahoo.com/blogs/newthisweek/8045/stars-and-stripes-indefinitely/">Dave DiMartino at Yahoo.com</a>, and in <a href="http://blurt-online.com/reviews/view/1994/">Blurt Magazine</a>....there was also a great feature on my work at <a href="http://www.fender.com/blog/?p=2432">Fender.com</a>...wonder of wonders. NPR made our version of "Hinay Ma Tov" <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125768297">Song of the Day</a> a couple weeks ago...<br />
<br />
The second album to be released was a re-issue of my celebrated 2001 album <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/epk/">"The Edge of Heaven"</a>...replete with bonus tracks, including a live version of the title track with the virtuoso pipa player/singer Min Xiao-Fen recorded at the Quebec City Summer Festival where we received a standing ovation after performing the entire album outdoors in front of a crowd of a couple thousand folks..the re-release scored a nice review in the <a href="http://gapplegateguitar.blogspot.com/2010/03/guitarist-gary-lucas-his-2001-chinese.html">Gapplegate Guitar and Bass blog</a>... <br />
<br />
Flash!!<br />
<br />
Just confirmed to play the European premiere of my <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/dracula">Spanish "Dracula" project</a> at the Transylvania Film Festival in Cluj Romania at the end of May...<br />
<br />
and immediately thereafter I will head out to LA to perform "An Evening with Gary Lucas Solo Acoustic" at the legendary <a href="http://www.mccabes.com/condata.html">McCabe's</a> in Santa Monica on June 5th...with my special guest my pal <a href="http://www.myspace.com/scottgoldmanmusic">Scott Goldman</a>, an excellent guitarist, sitting in on a number or two<br />
<br />
To celebrate spring, I recently filmed a new video down by the riverside here in the West Village with my pal <a href="http://www.dustywright.com/">Dusty Wright</a> at the helm, an unreleased solo acoustic track performed specially for his One-Take series played on my 1926 National Steel entitled <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdcsQcdNIvs">"Q & A"</a>...<br />
<br />
Enjoy!!<br />
<br />
Love<br />
<br />
xxGary<br />
<br />
ps If you're around NYC go and get yourself to a performance of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWgTWGXMyN8">'FELA!'</a> immediately, I just saw it for the fourth time last week, and it was tighter than ever and even more thrilling and empowering and uplifitng.<br />
<br />
ps x 2 Franz Wright just gave me the okay to lay the poem on you that he laid on me at my show in Boston referred to above, he says it will probably close his next book of poetry due out in 2011 from Knopf...<br />
<br />
Dig it:<br />
<br />
<br />
SONG <br />
<br />
<br />
Wysteria rain, where is your childmother? This must be the last bee on <br />
<br />
earth. So, you find no more grandeur or mystery here? Perhaps you ne- <br />
<br />
glected to bring any. Heckling sparrows, vast electron cloud of gnats on <br />
<br />
windless water. Night blue volume in a language no one reads . . . Are <br />
<br />
we tired yet? Are you finished debating the blind who insist that light <br />
<br />
doesn’t exist, and have proof of it? Nobody’s alone, God is alone. If you <br />
<br />
liked being born you’ll love dying. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Wright<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
and what can I possibly add to that? <br />
<br />
(Music)<br />
<br />
Which is to say:<br />
<br />
Stay tuned for a future live collaboration...<br />
<br />
GLGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-48340077859953633372010-02-08T13:00:00.013-05:002010-09-02T20:38:21.511-04:00See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Native!!Havana wild weekend...sold-out my show with <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/golem">"The Golem"</a> at the Rubin Museum of Art on Friday night , special thanks to Tim McHenry and Dawn Eshelman who made it such a wonderful and smooth experience, in one of my favorite places to perform in the world, there are some clips up taken at the event by my pal Colin Faber at both <a href="http://www.youtube.com/garylucas">http://www.youtube.com/garylucas</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/outfromunderlive">http://www.youtube.com/outfromunderlive</a>, check 'em out...inda house was Colin and his wife, WKCR heavyweight muso-jock Charles Blass, and lovely Brazilian avant-vocalist <a href="http://www.myspace.com/mossabildnermusic">Mossa Bildner</a>.<br />
<br />
Then Saturday went to a screening of "Avatar"...wonderful film...I'll be darned but if it didn't bring a tear or two to my jaundiced occluded eye "looking through crystal spectacles" taking the lenticular longview as it were, old softy that I am, for the first hour or so I involuntarily played "spot the reference" and counted oh at least 173 maybe 174 traces of other films ground up/mixed up in James Cameron's cine-blender/pish-toshterizer and I was bored brothers and I was bored, before eventually succumbing via the protracted retinal assault (scene through the lens of an eye) (X Ray Spex) to the lovely lavish and immaculate visuals on display (and I normally hate CGI) as well as the going-native/gone green/turn blue message being massaged/flogged/rammed home again home again jiggety jig for 2 hours 45, a message I can get behind in a big way...didn't even mind (well only a little) the quotations from the "Titanic" theme song near the end as old master organist JC pulled out all the stops, pressed all our buttons, played us in a masterful Spielbergian manner, I even found Sam Worthington's Mel Gibson impression endearing (a fellow Aussie, must have been easy) as much as I loathe malodorous Mel's (mal y Mel)'s rabid anti-semitic claptrap...damn good flick, I'd see it again...<br />
<br />
...and then hung for many hours at an old style Bohemian soiree last night at my friend Denise Gordon's capacious loft, good victuals scintillating conversation, fascinating array of media notables in attendance (including lovely Barbara Epler the editor/publisher of New Directions Books, the late legendary James Laughlin's inprint, a house which boasts one of the greatest backlists in literary history --Joyce, Apollinaire, Djuna Barnes et al--as well as a host of great Latin American and Spanish authors, including the fantastic Roberto Bolano...Barbara tells me they hold the rights to another dozen Bolano ms.', which is terrific news to us Bolano-maniacs, latest out is "Monsieur Pain" which scored a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/books/review/Blythe-t.html?scp=2&sq=roberto%20bolano&st=cse">glowing review</a> in the Sunday Times yesterday...<br />
<br />
hmmm...spent xmas in London per usual with Caroline and did a powerful spell of work at The Way Studios under the production aegis of my dear friends Gaz Cobain and Brian Dougans (Future Sound of London, Amorphous Androgynous) on a top secret project I am not at liberty to reveal details of at this point on pain of, uh, oh, I dunno, to reveal this now is clearly not a good idea...AA are <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/mojo1001_1.jpg">spotlighted in the latest issue of MOJO</a>--as well they should be!--and you can check out one of our collaborations "Opus of the Black Sun" on the covermount CD...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">At The Way studios in London Xmas 2009 with Amorphous Androgynous (Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans)</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/waystudios0912.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/waystudios0912_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br />
<br />
Producer Hal Willner and Arts at St, Ann's Susan Feldman organized a wonderful tribute to original Fugs founding member Tuli Kupferberg at St. Ann's Warehouse in early January who is in need of medical coverage, Tuli is an old friend and I bought a copy from him and his lady friend of the soundtrack of "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" by the fabulous Michel Legrand on the sidewalks of Soho about a year ago, paying tribute were such NYC luminaries as Peter Stampfel, Lenny Kaye, John Zorn, Shilpa Ray and her Happy Hookers, John Kruth, David Amram, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, Phillip Glass, and a slew of other notables...yrs truly performed an original instrumental tribute to the great man which is available for your viewing pleasure <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdg9YADfSNs">here</a>...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Backstage at Czech Republic and friends Benefit for Haiti, Bohemian National Hall NYC 1/29/10 - Martin Palous, Czech UN Ambassador; Eliska Zigova, Czech Consul General; GL; Marcel Sauer, Czech Cultural Center director/organizer of the benefit</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/benefit1001.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/benefit1001_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br />
<br />
Have a premiere of my new solo "Cinefantastique" project (playing classic film music from Fellini, Hitchock, Werner Herzog films and more) here at the Gershwin Hotel here tomorrow night at 8pm, which was a <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/newyorker1002.jpg">Pick in The New Yorker</a> this week...I debuted this at the Jecheon Festival in South Korea last August, you can see and hear clips from it <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/cinefantastique">here</a>...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary premieres his "Cinefantastique" project in NYC at the Gerswhin Hotel, 2/9/10</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cine1002.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cine1002_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br />
<br />
Lastly check out these three great clips from my performance with Najma Akhtar at the WOMAD Festival Las Palmas in the Canary Islands last November, where we played our celebrated <a href="http://www.myspace.com/worldvillagerishte">"Rishte"</a> album in its entirety before 5000 folks...<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAgjD3UVgwE">"Soul Taker"</a>...<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzX8NLZ2BMU">"Aksar"</a>...and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec0KtIhq188">"Rishte"</a>...<br />
<br />
more good stuff but--<br />
<br />
"I've gotta go now...<br />
<br />
gotta go now..." <br />
<br />
(fill in the blanks)<br />
<br />
--The Kinks, "I Gotta Go Now"<br />
<br />
<br />
xxLove<br />
<br />
<br />
GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-43418208569987531072009-12-20T15:12:00.014-05:002010-01-03T13:01:18.260-05:00Two Wings GoodAbout 6 weeks from my last posting and, hmmm, what can I say? A whirlwind of activity leaving me with little time to blog, a shame as I like to communicate with you guys as much as possible, but really, sometimes the business of living supercedes the telling of the tale... sometimes I had the best intentions to write after a show, only to find myself drained and with a few hours only to recuperate before heading for the next city (a fairly grueling schedule in another words for what was an amazing jaunt to 8 countries)...now I have a bit of free time as I am just back from Havana and still basking in the warmth of the sun despite freezing temperatures and a major snowfall outside here in NYC--so let's go to the video:<br /><br />this particular jaunt overseas began the day after a salute to my friend and supporter the late great music writer Robert Palmer at the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame annex in Soho the night before I left for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands to perform with Najma Akhtar at the WOMAD Festival...a new book entitled "Blues and Chaos" (Scribners) is just out collecting some of the best of his incredibly erudite and passionate writing about all sorts of music; suffice to say, Bob Palmer was just about the best critic going in my estimation as he was also a player of note (get a copy of his band The Insect Trust's album on Capitol if you can find it) and could really inhabit the spirit of what he was trying to describe/evaluate--and as they say, he who feels it, knows it--I have a tape of him jamming with the Delta bluesman Cedell Davis at the old Tramps from the early 80s (Robert played a mean clarinet), plus he recorded with the Master Musicians of Joujouka, produced the great R.L. Burnside (their album "Goin' Down South" is a classic), and wrote THE classic book in the blues canon, "Deep Blues", the reading of which sustained me greatly during a very dark period in my life after the bust-up with my first wife in 1981--and also turned me on to seeking out some amazing music I never knew existed which has become part of my life ever since...and Robert was one of my first major encouragers when I decided to go pro in 1990, he gave my 1992 Gods and Monsters album on Enemy <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/www/rvw/rvw_93.html#RS06">4 stars in Rolling Stone</a>...his ex-wife Debra Rae Cohen is an old friend going back to my days at Yale, and his daughter Augusta became a new friend upon the release of my 2001 <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/epk">"Edge of Heaven"</a> album as she was heading up NYU's Chinese studies Department at the time (Flash! "The Edge of Heaven" will be officially re-released worldwide on Knitting Factory Records March 16th 2010, with 2 bonus tracks)...the party was a great success, I took my guy Mitch Myers along and ran into alot of old friends including Lenny Kaye, Vivien Goldman, Richard Barone, Robert Christgau, Josh Feigenbaum, Bob George, Ted Drozdowski, Anthony DeCurtis, Andy Schwartz, a whole bunch of folks I hadn't seen in awhile...<br /><br />Next day I flew out to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands with a stop at the Madrid airport--quite a humid, balmy and tropical switcheroo from the grey coldness encroaching on New Yawk, one of the reasons I like touring so much...Najma and Sirish Manji our tabla player arrived a few hours later and we had a nice reunion followed by a rehearsal in a hotel conference room...the next day Najma and I spoke at a press conference at noon, some of which you can read here in Spanish, from the <a href="http://www.canariasaldia.com/noticia.php?noticia_id=158439">Canariasaldia website</a>...the journalist described our show on the mainstage as "possibly the most interesting concert of the festival", and it was a good one, our first major live show since the release of "Rishte"...it followed on the heels of a workshop we gave on the cross cultural blues and Indian music connection, which was well received, Najma had the crowd going teaching them Indian scales, and we did an incantatory "Special Rider Blues"...and then we hit around 9pm on the mainstage with a sea of fans in front of us, Najma sang like an angel and Sirish and I rocked out on the various songs ("Soul Taker" was a real standout, as was "Parda")...and at the end the 5000 plus crowd gave us a mighty cheer and sustained ovation...there is footage from the concert now that we are reviewing and hope to post some of these clips on my YouTube OutFromUnderLive channel in the near future--so keep watching that space! Special thanks to Paula Henderson, Julie Guerrin and Rebecca Jones for such a super job of coordinating what must have been a staggeringly difficult festival to pull off so smoothly...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary, Najma and Sirish Manji at WOMAD Las Palmas, 11/14/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/womad2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/womad2_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Najma, mainstage WOMAD Festival Las Palmas Canary Islands 11/14/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/womad3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/womad3_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Najma rock out at WOMAD Festival Las Palmas, mainstage 11/14/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/womad4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/womad4_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Next day we spent walking around and checking out the sites and sounds of Las Palmas--what a beautiful city, our hotel was situated right on the boardwalk ocean-front, and we found some delightful places to eat and hang, we saw some great acts also that evening including a workshop with Justin Adams and and the amazing Juldeh Camara...and then next day everyone departed and I was left alone in the hotel to work feverishly on my new solo score for the Spanish "Dracula" which I was due to premiere on Dec. 11th at the Havana Film Festival (I do some of my best writing in hotel rooms--no distractions!!)...two days of solitude and then it was off to Malaga Spain to play my <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/surr/">"Sounds of the Surreal</a>/<a href="http://garylucas.com/wwwi/id">Monsters from the Id"</a> projects at Fancine, the Malaga Fantasy Film Festival courtesy of my friend Hector Marquez...Hector had done a wonderful job promoting this particular appearance with an <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/fancine.pdf">interview in the week long festival program book</a>...but truth to tell I was lucky to be able to play this as Vueling Airlines (the worst!) forced me to check my 2 guitars, which I normally carry on the plane on my back, in the hold of the plane (AND pay 200e overweight for this privilege!), with the result that when I arrived and was met by Hector's girlfriend lovely Eliezer Godoy outside Customs I immediately checked the guitars--and damn if my Dimarzio pickup hadnt come loose in my 1946 Gibson J'45 acoustic and was flopping around in the body of the guitar itself...lucky for me Hector's friend lovely Elena Aparicio Mainar knew a luthier, so the afternoon before the concert I was able to get my guitar repaired, no problemo (whew!)...and what an amazing gig I had on Nov. 19th, at a brilliant old cinema in Malaga, the gig was packed and I received a wonderful <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/La_Opinion200911.jpg">writeup in the local paper</a> La Opinion de Malaga afterwards...Malaga was as always so much fun, after the show Hector Eliezer and Eliezer's niece went out and feasted on fried fish and serrano ham and tapas mmmmmmm...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and his friend Eliezer Godoy contemplate an emergency repair of Gary's J-45, Malaga Spain 11/ 19/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga1_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary does the brontosaurus playing "Monsters from the Id", Malaga Fancine 11/19/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga2_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary plays "Sounds of the Surreal" at Malaga Fantasy Film Festival 11/19/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga_4_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary confronts "The Brain Who Wouldn't Die" performing "Monsters from the Id", Fancine Malaga Spain 11/19/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga_5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga_5_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary plays "Monsters from the Id", Fancine Malaga 11/19/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga_6_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary contemplates the void playing to Rene Clair's "Entr'acte", Fancine Malaga Spain 11/24/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga3_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Then it was off to Paris for a couple days, where I visited my old friends art-photographers Mark Lyon and Laura Brunelliere, saw the amazing young singer/actress Lou Lesage perform on the outskirts of Paris the night I arrived, and hung with their friends (and Lou's parents) Pierre Emery and Gil Lesage ... and holed up at my beloved Terrass Hotel working hard on my Spanish "Dracula" score...<br /><br />Jumping to Venice, where I was met by photographer/new music devotee Pat Ferro, and later hooked up with my partner in Chase the Devil, Dean Bowman...Venice in late November was a shimmering misty jewel, and after great meal in the Ghetto at Kosher restaurant Gam-Gam with Pat I retired early as had to catch an early morning train to Trieste with Dean where were met and driven over the Italian border into Croatia to begin our Chase the Devil tour that in lovely Pula on the Adriatic coast... Pula was spectacularly scenic (with a wonderful standing Coliseum from Roman occupation days that rivals Verona's), and our promoter Željko Marković had done a splendid job promoting 2 nights for us there in a cinema, they were showing "2012" there which I thought was an appropriate opening act for us, as Dean and I are all about injecting positive spiritual energy and a healing vibe in our music, and God (only) knows the post-apocalyptic world could use more of this :-) The crowds were large and enthusiastic both nights, there were posters everywhere and a 2 page spread/ interview with us in the major newspaper Glas Istre, which you can read an excerpt from <a href="http://www.glasistre.hr/showbiz/vijest/138716">here</a>...and Dean sang his heart out God bless him, the first night we did everything we knew and then some for a full hour and 45 minutes, the second night we scaled back the show a bit time-wise so as best to preserve his magnificent pipes.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Arriving in Venice, 11/24/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_12.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_12_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Dean Bowman (Chase the Devil), Pula Croatia 11/25/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Dean Chase the Devil, Pula Croatia 11/25/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_2_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Concert promoter Željko Marković and Gary, Pula Croatia 11/25/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_7.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_7_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Dean in Pula Croatia, 11/25/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_8.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_8_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Then it was back to Italy by train through Venice and up to Firenze, one of my favorite cities in the world, I last played there in the late 90's at the Teatro Verdi performing with "The Golem" on a bill with John Zorn and Mike Patton doing their improv thing and Phillip Johnston and the Micros accompanying Georges Melies films...this time we were booked in the Museo Marini Maritimi, originally a 9th century church and now a fantastic modern art museum, the place was filled to capacity and after a fantastic meal of Tuscan food at the wonderful "Il Lantini" ristorante with the promoters from Musicus Concentus Fernando and Giuseppe we played perhaps the best set of our tour, on hand as a special guest was lovely Marina Conti who journeyed to Florence from Roma to sit in on the show and with whom I last performed at the Madame Guitar Festival in September near Udine, Marina sang an amazing version of "Mojo Pin" that really moved he crowd to tears.<br /><br />...next day was a grueling travel day, up at 5 to catch a plane at 7 to Munich, then another plane to Berlin Tempelhof...from there we cabbed it to Ost Bahnhof only to find the regional train service, which was to have taken us to Frankfurt Oder, was out of service that weekend due to rail repair...so we wound u racing to another train station to take an S train to a small town, then a bus (!) to another small town, and finally another S train to Frankfurt Oder...when we arrived we found ourselves in the middle of huge Vocal Music Festival, with some wonderful acts on display from all over the world, kind of a mini WOMAD Festival, we had a good set when it was our turn and then it was up again early the next day for a train ride or 2 into the Austrian alps, where we settled in lovely Schwaz near Innsbruck for a gig at the great Eremitage club, I've played there several times and you get a wonderfully appreciative audience who really know their music, our wonderful agents from Saudades Tourneen in nearby Rotholz including the indefatigable Jakob Flarer plus Anna, Barbara and Wolfgang showed up en masse and we had a nice reunion, these angels had done a terrific job putting together this our first European tour and judging by their reaction and the crowds who gathered for our concerts throughout there will be more to come :-)<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Chase the Devil in Frankfurt Oder, 11/26/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_9_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Dean with Giuseppe from Musicus Concentus, Firenze Italy 11/27/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_10.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_10_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Chase the Devil at Museum Marini Maritimi, Firene Italy 11/27/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_11.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_11_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Chase the Devil at Vocal Music Festival in Frankfurt Oder 11/28/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_6_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Dean in Innsbruck Austria 11/30/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_5_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Right about this time I got sent an amazing review of my "Rishte" album with Najma, from the latest Rolling Stone, courtesy of one of my longtime supporters David Fricke, a true saint of music who has consistently championed my playing and been in my corner since my first appearance on record with the release of "Doc at the Radar Station" ( for the last 30 years, in other words)...David really knows his stuff--excellent, informative and erudite, what can I say, David came through again with an <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/rs_rishte.jpg">absolute rave</a> blush blush...<br /><br />Another long travel day ensued with many changed of trains into the heart of the Czech Republic past Prague into Ust Nad Labem, a town I hadn't played in before (and I must have played about 10 cities in all in the CR over the years...my ancestral roots on my Dad's side are there in fact, my Grandfather being born in Bohemia), weather was getting colder but still we had a fine show marked by the appearance of my old friend Richard "Faust" Mader, with whom I recorded "The Ghosts of Prague" and "Free Flying" in his Prague studio some years ago (the former is available for download on iTunes, the latter should be released digitally next year)...and the promoter Stepan Sucholeb, fresh from organizing celebrstions in Prague marking the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, was another friendy familiar face, as he had promoted several concerts of mines in Prague over the years...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Chase the Devil at Narodni Dum, Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic 12/2/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_3_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Dean triumphant at the end of their final Chase the Devil European tour concert in Venice, 12/3/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_13.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_13_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Full moon over Venice: Gary, Dean, and Silvia before Chase the Devil's final concert of their 2009 European Tour 12/3/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_14.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_14_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Dean's final European tour concert in Venezia, 12/3/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_15.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_15_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary chases the devil, Teatro Fondamenti Nuove, Venice Italy 12/3/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0911_4_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Next day we took a plane from Prague back to Venice, for perhaps our best concert of the tour...had a few hours to walk around the most lovely of European cities before we set up at a beautiful theater right off a canal under the aegis of Enrico Bettinello, who treated Dean and I to a wonderful Venetian meal before the show...the place was packed, and I think it fair to say we brought the house down, there is something about final shows on a tour that spurs one on to give their best...and our friend Pat Ferro showed up with a couple boxes of advance copies of our debut CD for Knitting Factory/Sony Red, they officially will be released on March 16th (along with my "Edge of Heaven" album) but the good folks at the label had pressed up some advance copies for us to sell on our tour; sadly, they had been held up in Italian customs until finally being liberated by Pat...in any case we sold 20 immediately out of the box as they say, which bodes very well for the album I would say judging by consume reactin :-) (it's a good 'un, as they say...)<br /><br />Home for a day and a half and then down to Nassau where I caught a plane to beautiful Havana--I's been invited to perform the world premiere of my <a href="http://garyucas.com/www/dracula">new score for the 1931 Spanish "Dracula"</a> at the 31st Havana Film Festival on Dec. 11th by invitation of the Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinomerica, and this trip stands out as a highpoint of the year for me (a year in which I made performing debuts in Brazil, Colombia and South America), a high point of my entire career in fact...<br /><br />Such gracious warm and friendly people I met in Havana!! Special mention should be made here of wonderful Zita Morrina and Ivan Giroud, the programmers of the festival who ensconced me for 8 night at the fabulous 30's art-deco jewel, the Hotel Nacional de Cuba overlooking the Malecon...other fantastic folks I met include lovely Esther Cardoso the director of the Gaia Arts Centre, one of the most amazing theater spaces I've ever seen, a huge stage under a tent on the roof of an old building in downtown Havana with a view of the city to die for, Esther is partners in the arts ceter with my pal the English director Sebastian Doggart whose film "Courting Condi" was screening at the festival which is a terrifically funny and pointed film you should <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_0_kmEl060">definitely try and catch</a>, I recently contributed music to his latest documentary "American Faust" which just got a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/american-faust-from-condi_b_393618.html">glowing review</a> in the Huffington Post, you can order a copy of this stirring and very timely documentary now from <a href="http://www.indiesdirect.com/movies.htm">Indies Direct</a>...Esther took me to lunch on my first day there to La Divina Pastora, a wonderful Cuban restaurant situated next to an old fort across the bay facing downtown Havana, and later escorted me on a tour through misty old Havana late at night with wonderful live music spilling out on the street from so many clubs and bars and restaurants...Esther's cousin the dramaturge Mercedes Ruiz and her husband the fantastic singer/guitarist Aris Garit and their daughter Cynthis were a delight to hang with and cooked me several memorable meals including my favorite ropa vieja with rice and beans and sweet plantains mmmmmmmm...Toby Brocklhurts, an amazing English expat who knos all the ins and outs of Cubawas a wonderful Our Man in Havana type guide who was very very helpful and took me out the last night there to see some aming singers at the One Eyed Cat Bar near the hotel...and Toby's friend Luis Molina and his wonderful wife Olquita, Luis is one of the best guitarists in Cuba and leads a fantastic rock band Magical Beats, I jammed with him and them on two occasions and they knocked me out totally (the band consists of bass drums and guitar and 4 female flautists who did amazing work on a transcendental version of "Strawberry Fields Forever"--Luis is a big Beatles freak)...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary with Mercedes Ruiz and Gaia Arts Center founder Esther Cardoso, Havana Cuba 12/9/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary at La Divina Pastora restaurant, Havana Cuba 12/09/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_5_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary plays the world premiere of his Spanish "Dracula" score at the 31st Havana Film Festival, La Rampa Cinema 12/09/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_6_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Spanish "Dracula" premiere, Havana Cuba 12/09/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_7.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_7_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Spanish "Dracula" world premiere Havana Cuba 12/09/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_8.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_8_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary plays Spanish "Dracula", Havana Film Festival, La Rampa Theater 12/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_10.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_10_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and his helpers/handlers Milton and Melba from the Havana Film Festival, Hotel Nacional De Cuba 12/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_11.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_11_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />and the gig was a dream, special thanks to Melba and Milton from the Havana Film Festival who acted as my handlers/helpers, the La Rampa Cinema was absolutely packed with a fantastic mixture of [people, young and old, black and white, I played non stop for an hour and forty five minutes and received a prolonged ovation at the end , I was introduced by the chief film critic of Cuba who gave some background about the film (which was re-discovered in the 80;s in the Havana Film Archive! Yoj might say I was bringing Spanish "Dracula" back home...)...I received a <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/gramma0912.jpg">major rave review</a> and an interview in Granma, the main newspaper of Cuba a couple days later, web master Tany should be posting an English translation shortly...there was also a <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/diario0912.jpg">nice interview</a> that ran in the Diario del Festival, the daily newspaper that was published each day and distributed around the festival events...and the official festival program book contained a <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/prog0912.jpg">page about my screening</a> as well...I was so sorry to have to leave I can tell you, I was treated so nicely during my stay that I was missing the island even before I departed for snowy NYC Dec. 15th...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Entering La Rampa Cinema Havana Cuba for Spanish "Dracula" soundcheck 12/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_12.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_12_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">La Rampa Cinema lobby, Havana Film Festival 12/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_13.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_13_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary plays Spanish "Dracula", world premiere La Rampa Cinema Havana Cuba 12/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_2_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Great audience at La Rampa Cinema in Havana waiting for Spanish "Dracula" to begin 12/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_3_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Great audience for Spanish "Dracula" premiere, La Rampa Cinema Havana 12/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_4_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"La Sangre es La Vida, Signor Renfield"—Spanish "Dracula" premiere, Havana 12/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_9_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and his friend amazing Cuban guitarist Luis Molina</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_14.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/cuba0912_14_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Back now, and about to head off in an hour to London with Caroline for a working holiday/mother-in-law visit...<br /><br />Meanwhile here's my <a href="http://bodyspace.net/artigos.php?rub_id=147&&idart=4">Best of 2009</a> which ran in the Portuguese music magazine Bodyspace...and special mention should be made of two theatrical productions that were totally outstanding in 2009, <a href="http://felaonbroadway.com/newsletter/091201-producer.html">"Fela!" on Broadway</a>, which I've already written about extensively...and the Kneehigh Theater's production of <a href="http://www.stannswarehouse.org/current_season.php?show_id=42">Noel Coward's "Brief Encounter"</a> which is playing now at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, Susan Feldman, who was a major early supporter of my work with Jeff Buckley is the artistic director there, and she has done a fantastic job bringing all sorts of great theater and music to us jaded New Yorkers--both of these shows are not to miss!!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Lulu loves the snow...NYC 12/20/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/lulu0912.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/lulu0912_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />And lastly, get ahold of Tim Lawrence's great book about my dear friend the late great Arthur Russell, <a href="http://www.timlawrence.info/arthur_russell/2009/Holda-On-to-Your-Dreams-blog.php">"Hold On to Your Dreams"</a>...it is a thoroughly engaging and gripping account of this crazy maverick musician who should be alot better known in the world...and thanks to Tim's great book, the tide is turning :-)<br /><br />And I'll leave you now on a very, very high note...<br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/py1qEPQCyBM&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/py1qEPQCyBM&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br /><br />(you don't have to be a believer to dig the spirit here)<br /><br />Happy Holidays!!<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br />GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-33350599496334529882009-11-02T21:04:00.008-05:002009-11-05T16:25:11.680-05:00Lizard's Leg and Owlet's WingWhen the hurly burly's done (I may have time to write another blog!)...<br /><br />but seriously folks...<br /><br />Dunno about you ("they're cry-zy....they're all cry-zy...'cept for me and you...and sometimes, I even have me doubts about You" -- cockney asylum attendant to Dwight Frye in Tod Browning's 1931 "Dracula"), but I have been extremely busy lately (busy is good, not complaining mind you)...but...not much time to write these blogs, particularly in this clime...still...you axed for it...<br /><br />'Tis the season to be... <br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary before performing "The Unholy Three", Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater NYC, 10/22/09 | photo by Bob Strano</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/unh3_0910_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/unh3_0910_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Premiered a new solo silent movie score at the Walter Reade Theater on Oct. 22nd--a commission from the Film Society of Lincoln Center--for Tod Browning's 1925 silent thriller "The Unholy Three", there's a clip of the film with my music on it plus an excerpt from my solo guitar score <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/unholy/">here</a>...suffice to say it was a true labor of love, I must have looked at this film 40-50 times to get it right in rehearsing the mf, but hey I adore this film, which I prefer to the talkie remake...Halloween always brings with it the rattle of autumn rhythms old and new (breeze blows leaves of the mustard color yellow) and quite gratifying indeed to play for a surprisingly full house at my favorite shrine of the cinema in NYC and environs, thanks to Bob Strano for major assist in recording the score and to Film Society program director Richard Pena for greenlighting it and Sayre Maxfield for midwifing it, and Isa Cucinotta for scheduling and practical details, in the house were Film Comment's Gavin Smith, Cineaste's Richard Porton, The Hollywood Reporter's Doris Toumarkine, and some of my hardcore fans (new music lover Steve Spitzer for one, who pretty much has come to every single gig I've done in town for the last oh 15 years or so when he's not traipsing around in Japan)...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary, Richard Barone, Terri Roche and Deni Bonet cross over to "The Other Side", Tribute to Tiny Tim, Joe's Pub 10/30/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/joespub1009_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/joespub1009_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Had a slew of gigs over the last few days, did a one-off for Richard Barone's Tribute to Tiny Tim at Joe's Pub, I always had a soft spot for Mr. Khaury particularly his first album on Reprise produced by the excellent Richard Perry.. .many many years ago in a land far far away I was hanging on Marshall Street up in the 'Cuse deep in conversation with a kid with the longest hair I had ever seen on a guy at that point (musta been spring '68), a freak who had spotted me carrying The Move's first album under my arm and recognized me as a kindred spirit/stone anglophile, anywho he was sporting an acoustic guitar case emblazoned with his own hand red-lettered scrawl "Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band" across the front of it..."Who's that?" I asked innocently..."Oh that's a band my brother just produced in LA" he replied, and an hour or so later after a war toke or two or three something clicked and I proffered "Oh, is your brother Richard Perry by any chance?"...and yea verily it was his bro' indeed, I knew the name and what audio wonderment the guy was capable of having already imbibed deeply of the variegated linsey-woolsey wheezy whimsey that permeates the very warp 'n woof of this particular disc (Tiny Tim was a heavyweight talent, no lie...so much so that he even graces The Basement Tapes you never did get to hear officially) ..."God Bless Tiny Tim", yep...produced by Mistuh Perry...my favorite track back in the day was a mysterioso almost Hitchockian admonitory song/soundscape written by Bill Dorsey entitled "The Other Side" that in retrospect might have been the first mention of humans as fish fodder/global warming in a 3 minute pop song, can't think of another one right now dagnabbit since oh, uh, "Three Little Fishies" by Kay Kyser (woops, that's from the 40's) or Stubby Kaye's "Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat" (nope, 50's) or, uh, Donovan's "Atlantis" (that's more like it), but I'm sure there have been others since then...and that is what I performed with great assist at Joe's from legendary Candy John Carr (onetime Donovan percussionist, great guy...I saw him onstage with Mr. Sunshine Superman at the War Memorial about the same year as Tiny's album came out when Donovan's father acted as the emcee and sold programs during intermission, very Colonel Tom-ish)...also the lovely Terri Roche and Deni Bonet and Richard backed me up on the chorus of "The ice caps are melting..." Was the music supervisor of the soon to open "2012" hip to this tune? <br /><br />Nah, probably not...<br /><br />Then I hied it over to The Living Room and played a particularly satisfying set with Gods and Monsters--sans fx!! save a Fulltone...how liberating...could be a trend...we were joined by special guests throughout the evening beginning with Molly Hickok, the principal light of Annie-B Parsons and Paul Lazar's delightful Big Dance Theater, their recent show at The Kitchen superb, totally massive in the press recently, I even read about 'em in the International Herald Tribune when I was playing in London recently, Molly did a particularly piquant reading of "Please Allow Me to Look at You Again" from my 30's Chinese pop album <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/epk">"The Edge of Heaven"</a> (and did I mention that it is being re-issued with bonus tracks soon? Indeed I might have...but can't get stop now so here comes another plug)...Molly was followed by incendiary Felice Rosser who rocked out on spiraling ecstatic vocalese during our version of Abdullah Ibrahim's "Bra Joe from Kilimanjaro"...Last up, Cuturecatch.com's Dusty Wright brought it all back home with a fine reading of "Season of the Witch", there's that Donovan connection once again...<br /><br />Monday before that back at Joe's the beautiful and mega-talented sirene de la fete Sabina Sciubba from Brazilian Girls delivered an incandescent set of cabaret-ish polyglot songs with echoes of Paolo Conte, Weimar Berlin, film music and more, mainly acoustic with a flamenco guitarist and violinist in the mix, looking superb in red after recently becoming a mom (her kid roamed hither and yon and sang along on cue)... really really lovely, some of her new songs brought tears to our eyes (Caroline is a big fan as well)...Go Sabina!!<br /><br />Another wonderful momente musicale in town recently was attending a preview of the new production of "Fela!" directed by the amazing Bill T. Jones...which I raved about last year when it was off-Broadway, and now its moved uptown to the Eugene O'Neill Theater and is scheduled for a Thanksgiving opening...with swirling and stabbing defiant horn lines and hip-shaking grooves (not to mention the eye and ear candy of Fela's wives, a dozen gorgeous female dervishes who chime in smartly on the choruses) nothing beats this show's explosive and joyous energy, and its message of social liberation has never been timelier, Fela Kuti was an innovator and a hero and a martyr and the onstage band Antibalas plays the hell out of his songbook ("I.T.T.", "Expensive Shit", you name it--they nail it every time), and the night we saw the show understudy Kevin Mambo was fearlessly strutting his way through the title role, only the second time he'd done it on stage and he was damn good, unbelievable really, as the role is practically owned by the principal lead Sahr Nagaujah (who is iconic)... the audience was on its feet cheering and hollering at the end, literally dancing in the aisles...<br /><br />and while you're at it...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary Lucas and Najma Akhtar</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/najma_steel.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/najma_steel_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Take a gander at 2 new videos I've just booted up on YouTube...<br /><br />Namely, a clip of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8VdahLsCoc">"Rishte"</a>, the title track from my celebrated album collaboration with the great Indian vocalist Najma Akhtar...we are playing the WOMAD Festival in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Spain in a couple weeks with a tabla player, and LOOKOUT!! We've been itching to get this on stage for awhile, and our duets in London recently at the Jazz Cafe only whetted our appetite to bring it on home....we continue to garner rave reviews, here's a couple from <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/rishte_new_int.png">The New Internationalist</a> and <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/RishteRNROct09.jpg">Rock 'N Reel</a>...and "Rishte" is a first ballot nominee for a Grammy for Best Contemporary World Album...all you members of NARAS, vote early and often!<br /><br />Plus--<br /><br />Check out this new Gods and Monsters video for <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzywiLkW6Uc">"Climb the Highest Mountain"</a>, directed by Jill A. Black who did such a great job for us...<br /><br />it's a track from our forthcoming studio album produced by the great Jerry Harrison and featuring Ernie Brooks on bass, Billy Ficca on drum, Jason Candler on alto sax and Joe Hendel on trombone and keyboards...<br /><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pr/pr_latest.html">Here's a schedule</a> of new appearances upcoming.<br /><br />Hope to see you soon at a show near You!!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary at the Show Gallery, Staten Island before his solo concert for Mick Rock's "Glam!" exhibition, 10/16/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_mickrock_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_mickrock_4_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Lulu, West Village NYC Oct. 09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_lulu1009.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_lulu1009_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br />Gary<br /><br />ps More good news just in...<br /><br />I am so proud to have composed music for Sebastian Doggart's new documentary "American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi"...which was just nominated for the Maysles Award for Best Documentary at the Starz Denver Film Fest!! The winner will be announced on Nov 21st, the day of our premiere there...<br /><br />and some cool reviews of Fast 'N' Bulbous' "WAXED OOP" just in: <br /><br />from <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/Cadence.pdf">Cadence</a> and <a href="http://thejazzbreakfast.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/disc-of-the-day-16-10-09/">Disc of the Day</a> at The Jazz Breakfast website.<br /><br />Mmm mmm GOOD<br /><br />also--new track up on my <a href="http://www.myspace.com/garylucas">MySpace site</a> now, the theme from "Sex and Lucia" (2001, d. Julio Medem) by the great Alberto Iglesias, recorded live at the Jecheon International Film and Music Festival August 15th last summer at my late night cinema music concert...translation by lovely Hena Yang, recording furnished by lovely May Lee...enjoy!!Gary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-85697318763513916172009-10-14T20:27:00.011-04:002009-10-19T08:06:51.159-04:00All the Way from Swansea... came Jeffrey Preece and his lovely lady to my London Jazz Cafe show Saturday night Oct. 3rd in swinging Camden Town (and I mean swinging, as in fisticuffs--beware the lager louts abounding on the London weekend scene, which diminishes not a jot the hip aura of this club, rapidly becoming my favorite place to play in England, if not the Western Hemisphere)...they drove 3 long hours to come and see me perform which was really really nice, what a great night for giving generously to so lovely an audience--UK fans are among the most loyal in the world-- I was really really buzzing from the incredibly warm and positive good energy they were beaming my way... and <a href="http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=64068877">I did my best to return it in kind</a>...check 'em out, I opened with my version of The Stones' "She's a Rainbow" (dedicated to original hip malchick/Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham, with whom I cut a version of this in Bogota in July with his protege Juan Galeano), segued into "Rise Up to Be" for Jeff, and later was joined by my special guest vocalist extraordinaire Najma Akhtar for three numbers, our "Rishte" album continues to make press waves as we prepare for our big show at the WOMAD Festival in the Caary Islands on Nov. 14th-- check out this <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/RishteRNROct09.jpg">great review from Rock 'n Reel</a>)...We sailed off together for India and environs and the crowd was with us all the way, then I continued solo with a journey further East to Shanghai (my Edge of Heaven" before bringing it all back home with "One Man's Meat" at the end of the set...I could have played all night, frankly!!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary headlines the Jazz Cafe London, 10/4/09 | photo by Richard Heath</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/london1009_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/london1009_3_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and his UK publicist Tracy Gosling after his triumphant Jazz Cafe Show London 10/4/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/london1009_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/london1009_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Najma Akhtar outside Survival Rehearsal Studios, London 10/1/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/london1009_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/london1009_2_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />There is a <a href="http://www.fairhearing.co.uk/?p=657">nice review online by Pete Sargeant</a> on the Fairhearing music website which I think really captured the spirit of the whole evening, <a href="http://www.fairhearing.co.uk/?p=647">he also did a Q & A</a> with me beforehand which may shed some light on my current state of mind and recent and upcoming activities...<br /><br />In the house were my dear friends lovely Soo Lucas (the <a href="http://www.soocatwoman.com/">original punkette Soo Catwoman</a>) and her beautiful daughter Dion October who leads the band <a href="http://www.myspace.com/goodweathergirlmusic">Good Weather Girl</a>...also NYC expat East Village mainstay fixture singer/songwriter/producer/engineer/good friend of Jeff Buckley/Rufus Wainwright/and yrs truly the one and only <a href="http://www.myspace.com/jackmckeever">Jack McKeever</a>...and so many other new and old friends and fans, some of whom were there at my first ever appearances in London at The Venue with Captain Beefheart in November 1980...special special thanks to the Mean Fiddler's Craig Wylie for bringing me over to play (he actually angel-like reached out to invite me there to play last spring during a very dark hour for me) and also to the Mean Fiddler's ace publicist beautiful Tracy Gosling who did such a great job spreading the word and making it such a successful show...I LOVE PLAYING AT THE JAZZ CAFE...I actually had opened there in '91 and had a famous set-to with the noisy dinner crowd who were there for the jazz pianist headliner (amplifier volume is a great equalizer--it DEFINITELY got loud!), an account of which was in a live review of my show in The Wire back in the day... this time I was headlining, and it felt gooood--only took 18 years to get there :-)<br /><br />The night before I was Craig's guest at the Mott the Hoople sold-out week-long reunion show at the Hammersmith Apollo, which I went to with my dear friend whimsical Scottish madman John Stewart who lives down the road, after a day spent ding a photo shoot with Najma out at the Harmonia Mundi offices in East London...I've always loved Mott, and remember seeing them on acid in 1974 right before I graduated from Yale in Wallingford Conneticut with my friend Michael Caplan, who at that point worked as a clerk at Cutler's Records in New Haven, later was to become a successful a&r guy at Epic Records (where he signed Living Colour among others)...a great night that was in '74, he turned me onto both Iggy and the Stooge's "Raw Power" album and Roxy Music's Stranded" before we headed off to see Queen open for Mott, who were so awesome, Luther Grosvenor (Ariel Bender) was in the lineup then and he was always one of my favorite British guitarists, I actually wished he had been invited to do a cameo at this reunion--I love Mick Ralphs of course, but Luther has a manic energy to his playing I find quite incendiary--in any case, Mott were so great, they did all their hits of course, I spotted Mick Jones from The Clash outside before the show (a big Mott fan), the after-show party was fun too in the Apollo's private bar, I ran into my old friend Glenn Max who books Royal Festival Hall (he booked me there solo with Faust a few years ago, also The Magic Band) who was there with Damien Hirst's wife Maia Norman, journalist Kate Bernard, and some other nice folks...I left humming "Hymn for the Dudes" to catch the last tube train back to my beloved Swiss Cottage Hotel--a great warmup that really got me psyched for my solo show at the Jazz Cafe next night!!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and his friend singer Marina Conti backstage at the Madame Guitar Festival, Tricesimo Italy 9/27/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/italy0909_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/italy0909_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Sardinian guitarist Alberto Balia, Argentinean guitarist Mauro Cardozo, GL, and Italian singer Marina Conti, Madame Guitar Festival Tricesimo Italy 9/27/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/italy0909_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/italy0909_4_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Madame Guitar Festival director Marco Micconi, Marina Conti and Gary backstage at the Madame Guitar Festival, Tricesimo Italy 9/26/09 | photo by Riccardo Bostiancich</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/italy0909_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/italy0909_2_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Madame Guitar Festival director Marco Micconi and Gary, Tricesimo Italy 9/26/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/italy0909_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/italy0909_3_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />I had arrived in London directly from playing the Madame Guitar Festival in Tricesimo Italy, which was an amazing experience in itself, my good friend the lovely and ever so fantastic a singer Marina Conti accompanied me there on a 6 hour train trip from Rome after a beautiful day visiting and catching up with her (drinks on Via Veneto, whizzing around in her car to catch the late night sights after dinner in a spectacular outdoor restaurant featuring home-cooked local delicacies, devouring Sicilian snacks such as succulent arancini mmmmmmmmm) and once in Tricesimo (up near the Austrian border, near Udine) I really was made to feel at home by the gracious artistic director Marco Miconi and his lovely wife, Marco had booled such lumiaries as my old friend John Renbourn to perform there, and I closed the festival on Sunday night solo with Marina as my special guest performing a terrific version of "Mojo Pin" with me plus our new song "A Wandering Minstrel Eye", the next day was spent relaxing and eating the greatest food (I adore Italian food) and hanging with this great Argentinean acoustic guitar duo the Brothers Pablo and Mauro Cardozo and Sardinian guitarist Alberto Balia, folk legend Wizz Jones from the UK was there as well and he was just splendid--it was soe great festival, a real guitar pot-pourri/jamboree--the weather was balmy throughout, summery skies and mid-8-'s temperatures, really the best festival since Rochefort-En Accords back in August (and there is a nice clip of selections from my mainstage solo set from that blast <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXSyHaFhfwM&feature=player_profilepage">here</a>, thanks to Festival artistic director Karel Beer...also please check out a piece for The Travel Channel directed by my pal Eli Kabilio which is up online now <a href="http://esb-frontend2.ep.staging.re1.yahoo.com/vzwtravel/detail?vidID=15854060">here</a> on Yahoo's travel site, and you can view Yahoo's Trip Planner account of our sojourn <a href="http://travel.yahoo.com/trip-journal-2083188-rochefort_en_accord_festival_2009?showphoto=Y">here</a>...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and his special guests Wilmar Devisser and Emi Ohi Resnick outside the Paradiso Amsterdam, 9/24/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/adam0909_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/adam0909_4_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary with Paradiso artistic director Jan-Willem Sligting, Paradiso Amsterdam 9/24/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/adam0909_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/adam0909_6_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary @ the Paradiso, Amsterdam 9/24/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/adam0909_5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/adam0909_5_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary about to teach a Master Class at the Amsterdam Music Conservatorum, 9/23/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/adam0909_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/adam0909_2_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />My Italian idyll followed on the heels of my lovely Sept. 24th solo gig in Amsterdam at the fabulous Paradiso, my 20th something gig there (I've stopped counting) since 1980 with Beefheart, in myriad configurations...this time I was joined onstage by special guests <a href="http://www.wilmardevisser.org/">Wilmar DeVisser</a> on acoustic bass and the incredible <a href="http://www.emiohiresnick.info/Site/Welcome.html">Emi Ohi Resnick</a> on violin, together we performed the main title music from our "J'Accuse" project, a live score to accompany Abel Gance's searing anti-war silent masterpiece which sold-out the Holland Festival two nights running last June at the Staadschouwburg (check out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/garylucas#p/u/0/mtL6GG1Cftw">this clip</a> from the 1919 film with myself and Emi on the soundtrack)...a DVD of the nearly 3-hour film with our live score on the soundtrack (a joint effort with the great Dutch composer <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reza_Namavar">Reza Namavar</a>, who was in the house, performed by myself and the wonderful Ensemble Kameleon led by Wilmar) is being prepared for a spring release...also present were my old friend Dutch broadcaster Mary-Lou Busch, my oldest pal in Amsterdam visionary artist Joep Ver who had driven in all the way from the Aveyron in France for the gig...also joining me onstage that night was Canadian sax maniac <a href="http://www.myspace.com/robarmus">Rob Armus</a>, who I'd first hooked up with in Rochefort, he and I spent the night before the Paradiso gig (along with his lovely gal Emma) blowing our brains out at a squat restaurant/theater cafe, great fun, the man can really play!! He joined me for a few numbers including a killing acoustic "One Man's Meat"...the gig was jammed with so many old friends and fans, Amsterdam has been like a second home for me since I started really touring there in 1990...Jack Pisters was in the house as well, an old friend and super musician who is also a director of the Amsterdam Music Conservatorum where I taught a guitar master class the day before, I really enjoy speaking with the students there ("pass it on, boys... pass it on!")...another highlight was hanging with Rob Havers from Amsterdam's supercool <a href="http://www.deplug.nl/">Plug Guitars</a>, the amazing Dutch luthier who really made my Gibson J-45 sound terrific after several recent mishaps had knocked the pickup for a loop, Rob worked on Jeff Buckley's guitars on Jeff's last tour of Holland, and when I met him last summer he smiled and said: "Everyone comes to me eventually!" I like that :-) <br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Dutch luthier Rob Havers (who fixed Jeff Buckley's guitars on his last Dutch tour), Amsterdam 9/24/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/adam0909_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/adam0909_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and legendary Dutch broadcaster Co de Kloet, outside the Paradiso Amsterdam 9/24/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/adam0909_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/adam0909_3_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />My buddy the Zappa/Beefheart go-to guy of Holland, legendary Dutch broadcaster Co de Kloet from NPS was there as well and lent me a beautiful dobro to play at the Paradiso, so was old old Flip Nagler from NGN Films (who made a documentary on my work back in '92, "Guitar Unbound" for the Dutch Arte tv channel) and his lovely wife Berenike...so many old friends...I'd hate to leave any out but alas I might have, sorry--I love to play in Amsterdam!!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary recording music for the score of the new doc. "American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi", d. Sebastian Doggart, The Cutting Room NYC 10/5/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/faustrec1009.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/faustrec1009_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Immediately I was back NYC I was in the studio the very next night recording a part of a new score for Sebastian Doggart, my English director friend whom I hooked up with with at the Jecheon Festival in South Korea last August, where he was represented with his amazing <a href="http://www.courtingcondi.com/">"Courting Condi"</a> film...now he's doing it again with a hard-hitting documentary <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/American-Faust-From-Condi-to-Neo-Condi/73789637249?v=app_2344061033&ref=ts">"American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi"</a>...and I am very happy to be involved with it...folks in NYC should check out a <a href="http://broadwayworld.com/article/Chashama_Film_Festival_Screens_American_Faust_From_Condi_to_NeoCondi_1025_20091013">screening at the Chashamah Film Fest</a> on Oct. 25th...<br /><br />Working hard on my new solo live score for Tod Browing's <a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3780995&id=698115831">"The Unholy Three"</a>, which will receive its word premiere next Thursday at 7pm at the Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center (a commission from the Film Society of Lincoln Center, bless them)...<br /><br />Tomorrow I am heading out to Staten Island for a <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/dates/glam.jpg">solo acoustic set</a> at 8pm at the wonderful Show Gallery in support of my friend Mick Rock on the occasion of his "Glam!" exhibition ongoing there (photos of Bryan Ferry, David Bowie, Lou Reed, and especially SYD)...<br /><br />Saturday I am performing live at 11am on WPRB Princeton's radio station, talking about the making of "Rishte" amongst other things...<br /><br />and then in the evening around 9pm am sitting in with my pal Mike Edison at the new Knitting Factory in Willamsburg (amazing space!) as part of his Space Liberation Army...<br /><br />Reading Roberto Bolano's last novel "2666" right now...the most amazing headtrip you can have these days without the easy aid of drugs...<br /><br />This just in: <br /><br />I've just been invited to perform at the <a href="http://www.habanafilmfestival.com/">31st Havana Film Festival</a>, which runs Dec. 3rd-13th where I will perform the world premiere of my new solo score for the Spanish-language "Dracula" <br />(1931, d. George Melford)<br /><br />time and date tba...<br /><br />stay tuned...<br /><br />"Por la sangre es la vida, señor Renfield"<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and his good friend author Mitch Myers ("The Boy Who Cried Freebird"), White Horse Tavern, NYC 9/19/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_myers_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_myers_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Lulu, West Village Hudson River Walk, 9/14/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_lulu0909_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_lulu0909_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />xxlove<br /><br /><br />GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-6922378212534532862009-09-17T13:25:00.008-04:002009-09-20T09:44:42.526-04:00Rock 'n RochefortGetting soooo busy as we approach the autumnal equinox, embracing the bracing winds 'o change while jettisoning the green leaves of summer (theme music by Dimitri Tiomkin from John Wayne's "The Alamo", appropriated by QT for "Inglourious Basterds", haven't seen a peep about this anywhere in the press, maybe no one remembers or cares--but hey played a concert band arrangement of this masterful and stirring theme music holding down the French horn chair in the Nottingham High School Band in 1968), so not that much time to jot down my logorrheic spew...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and legendary photographer Mick Rock at the opening of Mick's "Glam!" exhibition, Show Gallery, Staten Island 9/12/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_mickrock.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_mickrock_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">GL, designer Danielle Cheng and filmmaker Victoria Lattimore, "Glam!" opening at Show Gallery SI, 9/12/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_mickrock_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_mickrock_2_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">GL, Danielle Cheng, Vicki Levy and Show Gallery curator Theo Dorian, "Glam!" opening</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_mickrock_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gl_mickrock_3_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />but just to say that Caroline and I took the ferry to Staten Island on a foggy late summer night last Saturday to attend a brilliant opening party for the brand new Show Gallery in Staten Island--home of David Johansen, among other luminaries--to celebrate the publication of legendary photographer Mick Rock's new "Glam!" book of classic photos of the likes of Syd Barrett, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Kate Moss, Ian Hunter, Bryan Ferry, et al--great great shots, a whole bunch of terrific pix festooning the walls of this ultra-cool space whose blazing red neon sign was visible as you step off the ferry, the gallery is on St George behind what looks like a French chateau...and inside was the aforementioned rogues' gallery a' hanging, dj a' spinning (vintage glam trax natch), 7 lords 'a leaping, and Mick a' grinning devilishly sitting next to curator Theo Dorian behind a table in the front autographing copies of his books which were flying off the shelves like tea trays in the sky, lots of great faces there including designer Danielle Cheng and filmmaker Victoria Larrimore, some stately dames/drag queens, plus my old friends boho music epicureans Richard and Roberta Berger whom I last saw at my 20th anniversary show at the Gramercy Theater last June, wuz a great party cum bacchanale with wine flowing copiously and a great strawberry and cream cake, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_Rock">Mick's the man</a>, his very name connotes the obsidienne substrata of rock rock rock a rolla, just look at his resume--right up there with my dear friend Anton Corbijn as a genius lensman/artist/chronicleer of the moment, aftermath, thought and reflection, his earlier book "Psychedelic Renegades" which is basically shots of his Syd Barrett in languid late 60's rockstar dissipation in the Earl's Court flat he then shared with Duggie Fields is a must-have (Mick shot the classic cover of "The Madcap Laughs" featuring Syd with his then girlfriend Iggy the Eskimo--short for igloo?), Mick is also old old pals with my good friend legendary Andrew Loog Oldham, with whom I've been working recently with in Bogota on a new album of Stones hits Latin-stylee (Andrew just sold the rights to his 2 volumes of classic memoirs "Stoned" and "2Stoned" to HBO for a fictionalized series--his books are seminal semaphore signals beckoning you... 'jes like the red neon sign of the Show Gallery..."and don't fergit to Let It Rock!")...<br /><br />Rochefort-En-Accords Festival which preceded this event in my admittedly scattered (for the moment) brain was a wonderfully long weekend in which I was accompanied first to Paris and then down to Rochefort by my pal Eli Kabillo, a great Israeli expat filmmaker who was doing a piece on my musical peregrinations (emphasis on grin) for The Travel Channel, should be broadcast early October, Eli is a great guy who is a rock (love that word) steady Man with a Movie Camera and after we had arrived at my beloved <a href="http://www.terrass-hotel.com/e/hotel/">Terrass Hotel</a> in the Abbesses Montmartre (which sports a fantastic view of the city from its rooftop restaurant--the hotel has basically been my home away from home Paris for many many years) we went over to the Eiffel Tour, took a pleasure boat down the Seine for more shots, hooked up with his friend Marty McDonough who served as a second cameraman and still photographer for dinner--then took the train down to Rochefort the next morning with my old pal French avant-guitarist <a href="http://jf.pauvros.free.fr/">Jean-Francois Pauvros</a> with whom I've played and recorded with over the years...Rochefort is such a beautiful city, you may know it from Jacques Demy's 1967 "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" which features a wonderfully jazzy and tuneful score by the great Michel Legrand, thanks to the organizers Karel Beer (blessed UK expat impresario, mover and shaker, former NME Paris stringer who hooked up several key shows for me in Paris over the years), Philippe Thieyre (another legendary French music guy/journalist who wrote a classic book about psychedelic rock which he gave me at the festival's end), and Gilles Ypremian (old old friend, manager of Urban Sax, a guy who literally rescued/recuperated an inebriated Jim Morrison from the Paris gutter, whisking him off the pavement and onto his sofa after Jim was bounced out of a French nightclub several weeks before his tragic death)...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary in Paris 8/26/09 | photo by Eli Kabilio</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Baron Samedi, Rochefort-En-Accords Festival, 8/29/09 | photo by Marty McDonough</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_2_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary at Le Tour Eiffel filming a segment for The Travel Channel, Paris France 8/26/09 | photo by Eli Kabilio</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_3_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary performs solo at the Rochefort-En-Accords Festival, France 8/26/09 | photo by Marty McDonough</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_4_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary on the River Seine, Paris filming for The Travel Channel 8/26/09 | photo by Eli Kabilio</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_5_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and legendary French music journalist Gilles Tordjman, Paris France 8/31/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_6_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Fantastic lineup too, <a href="http://">check it out</a>--such great singers and players, all of them worldclass performers and artistes making various joyful noises, we were all encouraged to collaborate which I did to the max over 3 days playing my old friend the hypnotic <a href="http://www.piersfaccini.com/">Piers Faccini</a>, soulful Ladychild (Natalia M. King) whom I first met playing solo acoustic at a memorable concert in the classique Hotel Du Nord 10 years ago (which resulted in my being signed to Label Bleu from whence ensued my "Edge of Heaven" 30's Chinese Pop album--but that's another story), Canadienne sax and guitar maniac <a href="http://www.myspace.com/robarmus">Rob Armus</a>, lovely vocalist <a href="http://www.myspace.com/gabrielaarnonmusic">Gabriela Arnon</a>, legendary UK instrumental whizzes <a href="http://www.bjcole.co.uk/">BJ Cole</a> on pedal steel and <a href="http://www.geraintwatkins.co.uk/">Geraint Watkins</a> whupping the pearls, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/harperspace">Nick Harper</a> (a stone Jeff Buckley fan) an onstage banshee, amazing French artists such as <a href="http://www.yvinek.com/">Daniel Yvinec</a> on acoustic bass, sexy punk punk rockers Berline, the list goes on and you should check them all out actually, American singer/songwriter rocker Ken Stringfellow is another one, Rebecca Hollweg, Marisa Yeaman--I could go into encomiums and raptures till the cows come home, but let's just say I had a ball on a sun-dappled weekend with a great bunch of friendly people, at some exquisite meals, made and heard some amazing music in various locations (including the opening concert on the famous Pont Transbordeur bridge which moves folks ferry-like across the river running through Rochefort...we were encouraged to perform river-themed songs and I picked Tim Buckley's "The River", before leading the gang into "Proud Mary"), the crowds were super-friendly, I played a great solo set on the mainstage Friday night and later reappeared with Jean-Francois at 1am on the same stage to perform our new improv piece "Bob le Flaneur", I hooked up with Piers, Ken, Daniel, Gabriela, Natalia, BJ, Geraint, et al over the course of the festival--hell, I performed with almost everyone there...still buzzing from the weekend... and then a couple days off in Paris where I hung with legendary French music journalist Gilles Tordjman and his girfriend the filmmaker Anne Fremy...I love Paris...I love Rochefort...Vive la France!!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary in Montmartre, Paris France 8/30/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_7.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_7_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and his friend Natalia M. King (Ladychild) rock out at the Rochefort Festival, France 8/27/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_8.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_8_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and his old friend French avant-guitarist Jean-Francois Pauvros being filmed on the train to Rochefort for the Travel Channel 8/27/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_9_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary at the Terrass Hotel, Paris France 8/26/09 | photo by Marty McDonough</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_10.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_10_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and singer Gabriela Arnon waiting for the train to Rochefort, Larochelle France 8/27/09 | photo by Marty McDonough</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_11.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/france0809_11_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Off now to record some new solo guitar pieces with my pal Tim Powell, who engineered some of my "Edge of Heaven" album...<br /><br />Gods and Monsters are playing at the Living Room here in NYC Saturday night at 10pm, come on down and hear my supergroup lift the bandstand...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/wechasethedevil">Chase the Devil</a> (me and Dean Bowman) had 2 smoking shows on 9/11 here, despite the rain and wind we held our own at the Clearwater festival in Washington Square Park and later that night at Drom...<br /><br />off to Europe again on Monday for solo shows in Amsterdam at the Paradiso Sept. 25th... at the <a href="http://www.romamusica.it/">Madame Guitar Festival</a> in Tricesimo Italy near Udine Sept. 27th...and headlining the Jazz Cafe London Saturday Oct. 3rd with a Very Special guest :-)<br /><br />Flash: Najma Akhtar and I have just been confirmed to perform at the WOMAD Festival in Los Palmas in the Canary Islands Spain on Saturday Nov. 14th...our new album "Rishte" is currently #4 on the World Music Charts Europe...and<br /><br />around and around<br /><br />we go...<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />Gary<br /><br />PS I wrote a <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/ROC136.guit_t.pdf">tribute to Davy O'List</a>, guitar hero of my youth, whom I selected as one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in an article in the latest issue of <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/crguitarist-1.jpg">Classic Rock</a> (UK)--which also cites me as one the 100 Greatest Living Guitarists...made my mother very happy, I can tell you :-))Gary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-56369783268924028142009-08-23T18:03:00.009-04:002009-08-25T12:42:46.578-04:00Right-On Jecheon!What a fantastic summer it's been so far, I've been really blessed playing one amazing gig after another--<br /><br />beginning with the Holland Festival in Amsterdam where I performed with the restored "J'Accuse", the Malaga Film Festival in Spain and the Sao Paulo Fantasy Film Festival Brazil with "The Golem", recording sessions in Bogota Colombia with legendary Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham and solo gigs there with Colombian pop star Juan Galeano--<br /><br />and now, having returned from lovely Jecheon South Korea and the 5th Jecheon International Music and Film Festival (and the theme of this festival, how music and film can relate, was right up my alley), what can I say, my cup runneth over...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary right before performing "The Golem" at the 5th Jecheon International Music and Film Festival 8/14/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary outside the Dujku Buddhist temple, Jecheon South Korea 8/16/09 | photo by Christie Jun</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_2_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary outside the Dukju Buddhist shrine, Jecheon South Korea 8/16/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_3_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary introduces "The Golem" on the mainstage at the Jecheon Festival, South Korea 8/14/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_4_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Backstage before playing "The Golem", l to r: programmer Jin Soo Jun, my translator for the festival Christie Eunhwa Jun, GL, and festival coordinator May Lee</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_5_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />it was my first time ever playing in South Korea, I'd passed through the airport a couple times on the way to Japan and Taiwan...but never have had the pleasure before to perform there before...and now that I am back from a week spent in that fair country all I can say is--WOW!! <br /><br />What a fabulous place, such wonderfully friendly and gracious people I encountered throughout the week, the festival was one of the best organized and tightest run operations I've observed and participated in...<br /><br />And they really took care of me and the other invited guests, from the opening ceremonies where we were all introduced onstage in the Grand Ballroom of the Cheongpung Lake Hotel (an elegant 4 star with breathtaking views of the lake abutting it to die for out my window) and throughout the rest of the week...<br /><br />the invited foreign luminaries there included brilliant Madrid filmmaker Juan Laguna, whose documentary <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOydUQNtq_g">"Princess of Africa"</a>, about a white Spanish dancer who marries into a Senegalese drum master's family to become his third wife, was one of the most compelling new docs I've seen in ages, Juan has such a marvelous visual flair, and the music was superb throughout)...also legendary vivacious Annette Kleinbard, the original singer for The Teddy Bears (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCnUsInBQws">"To Know Him is to Love Him"</a>) and also a hit songwriter (The Rip Chords "Hey Little Cobra", one of the first singles I ever bought--as well as the theme from "Rocky")...also debonair UK expat Sebastian Doggart, my Greenwich Village neighbor and director of "Courting Condi", for which Annette had written a song, and for whose latest documentary <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SFGLtvVWO8">"American Faust"</a> I am currently composing music for...also Mumbai's super talented Manish Achyra, who was there with the droll Bollywood send-up <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5Ea2UO_cf8">"Loins of Punjab"</a>... also hot Madrid film actor Fernando Tielve, who looks like a young Syd Barrett, and who stars in the great, quirky new dramatic film <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IazVQxOB-7M&feature=fvst">"Unmade Beds"</a> by Argentinean director Alexis Dos Santos which was one of he best films I caught last week...also lovely Australian director Emma Franz, who was at the festival with her cool documentary about the interaction between a Korean drum master and an Australian jazz drummer in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeCiaVhdszA">"Intangible Asset No. 82"</a>...really sweet and sensitive artists all of them...it was a pure pleasure to hang with them in turn throughout the week, I felt so privileged to view such splendid creative efforts...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary performs a solo concert on Cheongpung Lake stage, Jecheon International Festival 8/15/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_6_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary with 2 fans after his "Golem" Q and A, Jecheon Festival, South Korea 8/14/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_7.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_7_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and legendary Teddy Bears singer (and "Rocky" theme songwriter) Annette Kleinbard, Jecheon Festival, South Korea 8/14/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_8.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_8_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and his friend Hyun-Jung Shim, who composed the music for the fantastic film "Oldboy" (d. Chan-wook Park, 2003) at the "Golem" afterparty, Jecheon South Korea 8/14/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_9_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary savors bibambap at a fantastic Korean restaurant in Jecheon South Korea with his friend Gilsang Ahn 8/16/09 | photo by Christie Jun</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_10.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_10_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Special mention should be made of the festival staff--programmers extraordinaire Chung Woochung, Jin Soo Jung, and May Lee, gracious hospitality director Hena Yang, skillful translators Christie Jun, Miji Jeong, indefatigable volunteers (the Orange Brigade) Saerom Seong, Gilsang Ahn, Sora Ahn, the list goes ahn...they were all super lovely folks, and all so very helpful during the entire festival for what must have been a very stressed-out time for them, they worked so efficiently round the clock to keep the whole thing running smoothly, screening literally hundreds of international music-related films in the town of Jecheon at a multiplex cinema a bus ride away, and on the awesome mainstage contiguous to Cheongpung Lake and the hotel, and on a smaller stage set on a jetty in the middle of the lake reachable only over a footbridge...what a romantic setting, I have to tell you, the whole thing was so magical and mysterious working in this idealized setting<br /><br /> I played "The Golem" the second night I was there before a couple thousand folks (young people, families, critics, fellow artists) in what was my 1001st performance (or thereabouts) since debuting the work in 1989 at the Museum of the Moving Image here, and it was possibly my greatest gig with it ever, the <a href="http://10.asiae.co.kr/Articles/view.php?tsc=06.01.03&a_id=2009081511551785513">media coverage</a> had been really good in the run-up to the performance and I gave my all to the film, storming through the score in the humid tropical night as if my life depended on it, the film (a black and white print) looming over me on the massive-sized screen--and received a prolonged ad heartfelt ovation at the end...the Q and A afterwards was a lot of fun, one little girl (the daughter of Korean film music composer Joanne Seo) came up to the stage to ask me if I was tired after playing non-stop for 89 minutes, you can see <a href="http://blog.daum.net/moonsoonc/8494916">a clip here</a> from a fan's blog where you can see how excited and psyched I was with the audience's response after performing...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary plays "The Golem", Jecheon Festival mainstage, South Korea 8/14/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_11.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_11_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary does a double-take, Cheonpung Lake solo concert, Jecheon Festival, South Korea 8/15/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_12.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_12_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary with translator Hena Yang at his 1am solo concert at the Jecheon Festival, South Korea 8/15/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_13.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_13_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary at the Dukju Buddhist Temple, Jecheon South Korea 8/17/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_14.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_14_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Madrid film star Fernando Tielve ("Unmade Beds") eating Korean dumplings, Jecheon South Korea 8/18/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_15.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_15_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Following the film I hung at the Korean BBQ after-party with the Mayor of Jecheon, various glamorous Korean film stars, the Festival organizers, invited foreign guests, and cool Korean artists such as the lovely Hyun-Jung Shim, composer of the score for one of my favorite films, Chan-wook Park's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLn1y9v6yno">"Oldboy"</a>, whose outrageous new film "Thirst" I caught at the Sunshine Cinema here shortly before heading off to South Korea...Korean films are definitely in the vanguard of world cinema, and not only horror films (I've written extensively about Bong Joon-Ho's fantastic 2006 sea monster-on-wheels flick "The Host" in a previous blog--featuring a walk-on by my pal, superstar Paul Lazar)...<br /><br />Absolutely the best film I managed to catch at the festival (including festival winner "This is Anvil", and the James Brown-driven Ali/Foreman rumble in the jungle opus <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLukISwgTZs">"Soul Power"</a>) was the dramatic film <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMvtgOyTOkU">"Go Go 70's"</a> by Korean director Choi Ho, which concerned the autocratic repression of authentic roots rock expression in South Korea in the 1970's...borrowing a page (and songs) from "The Commitments", it concerned a band of young Korean musicians, US army base brats/hangers-on, who form a band known as The Devils to play American r&b Korean-stylee and who unleash the wrath of the conservative central government with their decadent demon-driven rock 'n roll which results in beatings, haircuts, and eventually lands their asses in jail-- the story had eerie parallels with my friends The Plastic People's plight in the Soviet-dominated Czech 70's (the PP played a couple of gigs in NYC while I was in South Korea, which I trust went well) and exemplified the major thema (and one of my pet theories) of Tom Stoppard's "Rock 'n Roll"; namely, rock as Dionysiac evolutionary/political/cultural catalyst...a fantastic film!! I do hope this film gets a release in the West, it was really quiite stirring...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary at the Jecheon Festival South Korea 8/18/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_16.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_16_100.jpg"></a><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_17.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_17_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and his translator Christie Jun, Jecheon Festival South Korea 8/18/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_18.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_18_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">The view out my hotel window, Cheongpung Lake Hotel Jecheon South Korea 8/14/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_19.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_19_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Noodles, scallion pancakes, and kimchee, Jecheon South Korea 8/14/09 | photo by Christie Jun</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_20.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_20_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />What else? Food was amazing as usual, I feasted on my favorite Korean dish <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibimbap">bibimbap</a> with bulgoki and kimchee several times...had several magnificent country outings courtesy of the Festival, my favorite being a trip to the Dukju Buddhist shrine, to hear a solitary monk intoning prayers in front of the altar in an aching soulful voice was the purest blues...<br /><br /> I am enthralled by the sights and sounds of South Korea (and tastes, I took Caroline and Cineaste editor Richard Porton to 13th Street Korean eatery DoSirak Fri. after a screening of "Inglourious Basterds"--very enjoyable flick btw--on Friday night for more bibimbap, to keep the flavor alive!, I made many new friends and fans there (every time I went to the town cinema during the week I was stopped for autographs and photos by folks who had seen me play "The Golem", and who had also attended my Saturday 1am cinema music concert "One Summer Night" on the stage set in the middle of the lake, where I performed music by Nino Rota, Popol Vuh, George Gershwin, Henry Mancini, and many other of my favorite film composers)....I was really sad to leave South Korea, and hope to return soon--it was an absolutely brilliant and unforgettable experience!!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary with the mayor of Jecheon, Annette Kleinbard, Hyung-Jung Shim, Sebastian Doggart and Emma Franz 8/18/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_21.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_21_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary with filmmakers Emma Frantz, Sebastian Doggart, songwriter Annette Kleinbard, and filmmaker Manish Achyra, Jecheon Festival</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_22.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_22_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Saerom Seong, Gary and Fernando Tielve outside the Dukju Buddhist Shrine, Jecheon South Korea 8/17/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_23.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_23_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">3 Volunteers including my translator Christie Jun, GL, Teddy Bears singer Annette Kleinbard, Madrid director Juan Laguna, and Madrid actor Fernando Tielve, Jecheon South Korea 8/16/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_26.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_26_100.jpg"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary plays "The Golem" at the Jecheon Festival South Korea 8/09 | photo by Sebastian Doggart</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_24.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_24_100.jpg"></a><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_25.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/skorea09_25_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Home for a couple more days r&r with Caroline and Lulu (who we are loving so much, though she is running us ragged!)...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary in front of Chuck Close's portrait of Lucas Samaras, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 8/09 | photo by Mike Edison</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/met_0809.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/met_0809_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />and then off again Tuesday night to France to play the <a href="http://www.rochefort-en-accords.fr/">Rochefort-En-Accords Festival</a>, sharing stages over 3 days and nights there with my old friends Piers Faccini and Jean-Francois Pauvros and other folks I am eager to play with (Natalia King, Nick Harper, Ken Stringfellow, BJ Cole and others)...<br /><br />I am performing solo on Friday night at 10:40pm on the mainstage...<br /><br />and hope to see you there!!<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br />GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-52710143388154953122009-08-09T10:19:00.014-04:002009-08-10T12:15:47.542-04:00Light OnGetting ready to head out on Wednesday to play the <a href="http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/07/18/200907180041.asp">5th Jecheon International Music and Arts Festival</a> in South Korea in the lovely town of Jecheon outside Seoul with <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/golem/">"The Golem"</a>... <br /><br />the last couple of weeks since I've been back from my trip to Latin America have been sent basically decompressing--catching up on sleep, tying up loose ends here, paying bills (oy), rehearsing, seeing movies, live music, basically searching for stolen moments away from the usual hustle before my next trip <a href="http://malaysia.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080616150546AAIkFJc">lighting out for the territories</a>...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Lulu, Caroline and Gary, Mojo Coffee, West Village, 7/09</span><br /><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/blog090809_1.jpg"><br /><br />still, nothing quite beats the memory of the delightful time spent in Apulo Colombia recently with Andrew Loog Oldham, Esther Farfan, and Caroline (and not forgetting their dogs Gruff and Daisy!)...<br /><br />Movies: Best I've seen recently (but pretty damn depressing admittedly) was a double bill of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN7-tepnIfY">Matteo Garone's "Gomorrah"</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97Fc8k2UARE&feature=related">Paolo Sorrentino's "Il Divo"</a> up at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center (my favorite theater in NYC in fact--where I will premiere my new live score for Tod Browning's silent thriller <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unholy_Three_(1925_film)">"The Unholy Three"</a> on October 22nd--save the date!)...<br /><br />Despite the pervasive gloom engendered by this peak into the seamy netherword of Italian politics, I quite enjoyed these two films, which were really adult cinema (ie, what used to be known as "foreign films") at its best--a commodity which seems to have pretty much fallen off the map in this country unfortunately over the last few years...<br /><br />I am so looking forward to performing in Italy again in September at the Madame Guitar Festival in Tricesimo near Udine, I love Italian culture in general and any time I play in that lovely country is a blessing...<br /><br />this year I find myself listening nearly incessantly to the music of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44wqc2gbbfY&feature=related">Paolo Conte</a> which I rate right up there with the best music ever made, his music never fails to move me, uplift me, entrance me--I bought his "Reveries" album several years in a store in Saint Petersburg that carried bootlegs of seemingly every album every made (like that Robert Klein routine), music divided and catalogued in the store by decades, however obscure (found a double album of Harpo Marx's music there for instance--yes! also <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus_Maximus_(American_band)">Circus Maximus</a>' first album, great 60's jazz-rock band, Jerry Jeff Walker's first group, containing that staple of 60's FM freeform radio, "The Wind")--anyway, "Reveries" started me off on a journey that has taken me deeper and deeper into the world of Paolo Conte--I would recommend his "Best of" album on Nonesuch here as a good starter for anyone interested in checking out his work (but hey I own about 15 of his albums now--in fact the lovely Italian singer Marina Conti gave me his "900" album for my birthday--thanks Marina!!--and it's hard to pick a particular favorite--they all have something magical to recommend them--he really is the greatest)...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Sunset out our window, West Village NYC 8/09</span><br /><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/blog090809_2.jpg"><br /><br />Also enjoyed Woody Allen's "Whatever Works", I am quite partisan about Larry David (could watch reruns of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsm3FObZ1sI">"Fawlty Towers"</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-wsbKfFhLw">"SCTV"</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs2476Y8Y7I">"Curb Your Enthusiasm"</a> and "The Daily Show" endlessly), and found this film quite sweet and funny...unlike the new Harry Potter film, which was a gigantic snore...yet the critics seem to adore this particular HP (apple)sauce, and dissed Woody's new film...oh well...<br /><br />and then there was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d245reK0fdw&feature=related">"In the Loop"</a>--yes!! Funniest film in ages, so true--go see it!! Peter Capaldi is brilliant as the Scottish spinmeister Malcolm Tucker, James Gandolfini is great as usual, we loved it non-stop throughout, and the thing of it is, it is so close to the way things actually ARE, it's really not such a laughing matter when you get right down to it...but--what the hey, laugh through the tears, laugh till it hurts-- this film will put a big smile on your face guaranteed--climb the mountain of conflict and see it :-)<br /><br />Reasons to be Cheerful pt. two: my new album "Rishte" with the amazing Indian vocalist Najma Akhtar is <a href="http://www.wmce.de/?chartUrlMonth=8&chartUrlYear=2009">#7 on the World Music Charts Europ</a>e this month (yeah!!)...<br /><br />and there is a <a href="http://www.spinner.com/2009/07/28/najma-akhtar-and-gary-lucas-add-new-shades-to-global-blues/">really nice feature</a> about the making of it at Spinner.com.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Lulu sleeping peacefully just back from the vet, 8/8/09</span><br /><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/blog090809_3.jpg"><br /><br />Have to dash--we're lighting out with Lulu for vanilla pancakes at our new favorite cool Village hangout Smorgas Chef on West 12th Street, a delightful joint with the best Swedish cuisine...this year saw the demise of a slew of great restaurants in the Village due to greedy landlords abounding, much regret at the closing of our beloved Portuguese restaurant Alfama (had dinner there on their final night, beautiful Fado music playing live--good news is they will reopen elsewhere, stay tuned), also Monster Sushi, Mama Buddha, Sung Chu Mei, Chez Brigitte, Bourbon Street West, Da Andrea--<br /><br />but some great new ones have opened also, including a branch of the fantastic Chinese restaurant Grand Sichuan on Varick Street...<br /><br />and let us not forget the Waffels and Dinges truck that parks on the corner of Christopher and 7th Avenue occasionally--<br /><br />soft and chewy Belgian waffles. plus toppings of fruit, dulce de leche, melted Belgian chocolate, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />Gary<br /><br />ps just read the sad news about the passing of Mike Seeger <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/arts/music/10seeger.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries">in the Times this morning</a>...while not as well known as his brother Pete he was equally gifted, a real treasure of American folk music, and was a hell of a player on all sorts of instruments. I first encountered him backstage at Symphony Space when Peter Stampfel and I performed as The Du-Tels at a New Lost City Ramblers reunion show and dug his dry wit and masterful performance style, last saw him backstage at the New York Guitar Festival at Town Hall a couple years ago on one of David Spelman and John Schaefer's themed tribute shows (to Mississippi John Hurt)-- a real gentleman and a scholar and educator, Mike's re-discovery of the great Appalachian banjo player and singer Dock Boggs is on a par with John Fahey, Bill Barth and Henry Vestine's re-discovery <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2POWSnStU">of Skip James</a>--a blessed event in American roots music...the whole Seeger family really is one of the great benign American dynasties...though socialist to the bone, they would no doubt hate to be described this way :-)...I loved working with Mike's niece Sonya Cohen on some of my earliest recordings (she was so great on "Out from Under"), and Peggy Seeger is one of the greatest <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg6hLunBOsw">performers</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgzl1Sai4Y0&feature=related">songwriters</a>, and should really be better known... <br /><br />Speaking of the Seegers, Dean Bowman and I are bringing our <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yweBRovUL1w">Chase the Devil</a> duo to Peter Seeger's annual Clearwater Festival in Washington Square Park at 3pm on 9/11, and if you're in the city come on down...Gary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-64947677535151734872009-07-19T09:08:00.011-04:002010-08-30T12:22:00.059-04:00Heaven is a place on earthSunny Sunday morning back in NYC, and still buzzing from my show last night at the Living Room on the Loisaida with Gods and Monsters, my boys Ernie Brooks, Billy Ficca, Jason Candler and Joe Hendel blew their hearts out per usual, plus we had Mike Edison on theremin (a regular Clara Rockmore he is...great surnames, both of 'em) to ratchet up the instrumental madness on "One Man's Meat", Mike's written a recent blog describing his last foray on stage with us at the great Gods and Monsters 20th Anniversary blow-out at the luscious Gramercy Theater here June 11th, which <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/107278-94778-i-have-fun-in-brooklyn-4-exclusive-author-blog-from-mike-ediso/">ran recently on his blog</a> at PopMatters.com, videos are starting to surface from that legendary one night stand in Yoo Nork, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/outfromunderlive">check them out now</a> (there's 4 clips from both my solo set and band set up there now, with more to come soon), you can also take a gander at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFvstrxqXD0">Gods and Monsters first ever gig</a> in June 1989 at the Welcome Back to Brooklyn Festival in Prospect Park Brooklyn, brought back alive by Giorgio Gomelsky God bless 'em...you can see that the origins of the band were grounded in a specific jazz-rock fusion thrust, liberating to play live (and we still dip into that bag during our current set), but ultimately dissatisfying to me as a modus operandi after a couple gigs in that format, as I wanted to write and play actual SONGS (sung blue), which I started to begin writing (and how...) in the summer of '89...<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gods and Monsters at The Living Room NYC 7/18/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/lroom0709_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/lroom0709_2_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">click to enlarge</span><br />
<br />
...and who should be sitting in the audience last night but my childhood friend Jamie Schiffner with his lovely daughter, I haven't laid actual eyes on Jamie since o habout 30 some very odd years, it was delightful to see him again, he and I took lessons from the same guitar teacher in Syracuse Mr. Christensen (and wot's in a name?), Jamie was really good from the getgo, my 9 year old self hung in there with the lessons for about a month in total agony as my fingers grew raw and rapidly sore from the rather high action on my crappy rental guitar, wasn't till my folks came back from a trip to MEXICO (yeah!!) with a nylon string Spanish style guitar that I rapidly began evolving on my own (friends don't mind just how you grow), the other kicker in meeting Jamie yesterday also, bringing it all back home, is that I remember that the very first time I specifically heard The Rolling Stones was in Jamie's parents' house, when "The Last Time" came wafting ever so majestically and forcefully over his older brother Scott's transistor radio (tuned to radio station WOLF, quite rightly) while I was over visiting Jamie in May 1965, imagine my surprise (shock and awe) hearing Brian Jones busting out that deceptively simple electric guitar groove for the first time (a close inspection of any <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzZHmHqEE7k">live footage of the band circa that era</a> reveals Brian is playing it-crafty fella- not at all in first position on the first three frets, as is the received guitar mag wizdom)--ahhh, that SOUND, a wolf-whistle if ever there was one to my adolescent ears of which once heard I have never quite recovered from to this day, first cyclic hypno-riff to burn itself meme-like into my teenage brain (beating out the chanted refrain "Turn Turn Turn" by a few months)--<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary, Jamie Shiffner and his daughter, The Living Room 7/18/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/lroom0709_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/lroom0709_1_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">click to enlarge</span> <br />
<br />
...and just how this particular saudade squares up with recent events is namely, that I just got back from Bogota Colombia night before last where I was working in the studio on a new arrangement of this very same song Latin-stylee with the legendary Andrew Loog Oldham, producer emeritus/Stones Svengali/ultra-pop catalyst-- as important a figure in his own way as Dylan in terms of upsetting ye olde Apple cart, jacking the musico-cultural evolutionary process up to warp speed, forger of the badboy template group-wise (a smidgeon of Gene Vincent laced with a pinch of Marlon Brando crossed with a soupcon of Jean-Paul Belmondo) that eventually begat Punk Rock as we know it, flouter of convention, re-writer of rules, loather of slowness laziness standard issue greyness, I could go on but jeez let's just say Andrew is one in 6.722 billion, and has emerged over the passage of so many years post-Stones unscathed and in truly magnificent shape, sharp as a needle still, with a mouth, wit and sensibility to match (and also-- be it known--a really big and generous heart... a true gentleman)...go and get his books <a href="http://www.everybodymustgetstoned.net/">"Stoned" and "2Stoned"</a>, which are must-reads for anyone remotely interested in this bidness of music, and classics of autobiographical artistry... and check out his daily Sirius Satellite Radio show (guaranteed to raise a smile!) on <a href="http://www.littlestevensundergroundgarage.com/">Little Steven's great Underground Garage</a> channel...<br />
<br />
Yep, there I was in Pirate Cove Studios Bogota last week working on "The Last Time" (a Mick 'n Keith gloss on The Staples Singers' "Maybe the Last Time", which Dean Bowman and I cover incidentally in our <a href="http://www.myspace.com/wechasethedevil">Chase the Devil</a> duo incarnation), working/playing (the best prescription for a happy life I know) as part of a new album project produced by Andrew O, mixing Latin grooves, beats, electronics and whatnot with new instrumental versions of the Stones' Big Hits (high tide and green grass), with my guitar both acoustic and electric to the fore in the company of some coolass Latin American musicians, including Andrew's protege, the amazing young Colombian pop singer/multi-instrumentalist <a href="http://www.myspace.com/juangaleano">Juan Galeano</a>, whose debut album produced by Andrew about to drop any minute now (I played on it in fact)...<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary gets ready for action recording at Pirate Cove Studio, Bogota Colombia, 7/8/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_4_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">click to enlarge</span><br />
<br />
So to run into my childhood friend Jamie last night at my gig was quite a kicker, in so far that it brought me around full circle, memories of how I first became a major Stones fan by overhearing them casually at Jamie's parents house as a boy, to working now with Andrew on this here Stones Latin project, to running into Jamie again after lo all these years and the subsequent rush of site-specific first time Stones memories...quel mindfuck...<br />
<br />
which is the thema of this here blogfest, namely:<br />
<br />
my 2 week 2 day Latin American immersion...<br />
<br />
what a great summer it's been so far!! And it ain't over yet (off to South Korea in a couple weeks to play the <a href="http://asiaenglish.visitkorea.or.kr/ena/SI/SI_EN_3_2_2.jsp?cat=1&area=&dateStart=05-01-2009&startDate=20090501&dateEnd=&endDate=&keyword=&category=&areaCode=&gotoPage=&stype=&cid=735720">Jecheon Music and Film Festival</a> outside Seoul...and then direct to Paris and environs for the <a href="http://www.rochefort-en-accords.fr/">Rochfort-en-Accords Festival</a>...<br />
<br />
...wasn't hardly back home from closing the Malaga Film Festival for less than a day when I was off to Sao Paulo to play "The Golem" at their First Fantasy Film Festival known simply as <a href="http://www.spterror.com/">SP Terror</a>...<br />
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and how I loved Brazil!!<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">On the ferry from Bertioga Brazil | </span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/brazil09_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/brazil09_4_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Sao Paulo by night taken from Gary's hotel room, 7/6/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/brazil09_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/brazil09_6_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">click to enlarge</span><br />
<br />
And Sao Paulo...man, what a beautiful Blade Runner-like landscape of skyscrapers and ultramodern buildings intermingled with old Brazilian architecture, bustling with people, very high altitude made it (like Bogota) delightfully brisk and damp and noirish (my favorite climate)...the lovely artistic director (same surname as my Mom's side of the family), a native of SP who has lived in London for many years and now shuttles back and forth, warmly greeted me upon arrival and generously set me up on the 27th floor of the Quality Suites Bela Cintra, a beautiful luxury hotel downtown quite near the city center, close by the wonderful arthouse Cinema Reserva Cultural, where the festival events were taking place and where I would be performing on Friday night to close the festival...and man, did they have a groaning board (heheh) of fantastic cinema on tap, including a print of my favorite film of last year, "Let the Right One In", which I've already saluted in an earlier blog...first night there after feasting with Betina on nuevo-Brazilian cuisine I went to see an advance screening of a great black comedy/erotic horror thriller, an Amer-Indie flick co-directed by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel which hasn't opened officially yet, entitled "Deadgirl"--superb film, check out the <a href="http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/07/01/deadgirl-trailer/">trailer</a>...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary plays on Pop Loaded Brazilian music podcast site, Sao Paulo Brazil 7/2/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/brazil09_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/brazil09_3_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary playing live solo on Brazilian music website Pop Loaded, Sao Paulo Brazil 7/2/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/brazil09_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/brazil09_2_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary and renowned Brazilian horror film director and star Coffin Joe (Jose Mojica Marins), Sao Paulo Brazil, 7/2/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/brazil09_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/brazil09_1_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">click to enlarge</span><br />
<br />
Next day I was up early and was picked up in the pouring rain to tape a 4 song solo set for the supercool Brazilian music website Pop Loaded (special thanks to lovely Ana Carolina Monteiro for hooking it up), and you can see the results here now,<br />
including <a href="http://tvig.ig.com.br/136309/gary-lucas---fata-morgana.htm">"Fata Morgana"</a>, from my last album "Coming Clean", about a Mama Bruja :-),<br />
<a href="http://tvig.ig.com.br/136297/gary-lucas---rise-up-to-be.htm">"Rise Up to Be"</a>, my original instrumental that I gave to Jeff Buckley that became the instrumental basis for our song "Grace", a medley of <a href="http://tvig.ig.com.br/136791/gary-lucas---one-man-s-meat/-swamp-t-ing.htm">"One Man's Meat" from my last album into "Swamp T'ing"</a>, from the forthcoming Gods and Monsters album produced by Jerry Harrison, and <a href="http://tvig.ig.com.br/136303/gary-lucas---bra-joe.htm">"Bra Joe from Kilimanjaro"</a>, my tribute to the great South African jazz pianist Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim)...the guys at the Pop Loaded studio couldn't have been nicer, and they were so enthusiastic about my performance, it was a wonderful feeling indeed...I then raced across town in a cab for lunch with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mojica_Marins">Jose Mojica Marins a/k/a Coffin Joe</a>, one of the world's greatest living film directors and actors, about whom I have written about extensively herein--Marins is the missing link between Mario Bava and Luis Bunuel, and his character, the gravedigger Coffin Joe, one of the all-time greatest on-screen horror icons ever with his eschatological rodomontade spew and villainous sadistic cackle co-existing nicely with lurid visions of Hell and Catholic redemption, he was present for a final meeting of the Festival judges who would vote on the best films submitted to the festival to be announced right before my performance that even, Zé do Caixão was very fit and friendly in the flesh as it were, with a to-die-for (heheh) young coffee-colored bombshell on his arm, and sporting long yellow talons on both hands, 4-inch fingernails that are quite real...he's working with the artistic director on a new Coffin Joe film project for worldwide release, keep watching this space...meanwhile, run don't walk to Amazon.com and treat yourself to a DVD copy of Marins' 1967 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Night_I'll_Possess_Your_Corpse">"This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse"</a>, the most hallucinogenic fever dream of an art-horror masterpiece ever committed to celluloid...<br />
<br />
Then it was on to the sold-out, packed cinema, where I set up with my guitars and fx directly after the last film in cimpoetition to be screened in record time, the awards for best films in competition were announced, I was introduced by Betina--and then played "The Golem" as if my life depended on it...my guy Paul Chisefsky here in NYC had prepared a special Portuguese-subtitled version specially for SP Terror...and at the film's end, I received a standing ovation...third standing ovation this summer after my shows with "J'Accuse" at the Holland Festival in June...afterwards I played a solo acoustic set at an afterparty held at a fabulous large roomy house in Sao Paulo occupied by various cool young folks who worked during the Film Festival, they swayed and danced as I played after midnight in a trance (I was half-dead from jetlag at this point but I can always play, every time), got a great hand from the crowd and then went back to the hotel to sleep for a few hours.<br />
<br />
In the morning I rode out to the lovely sea-coast town of Bertioga with the artistic director and her friend Micha and spent an idyllic weekend in her new house, the temperature increased about 10 degrees as we got farther away from Sao Paulo, and the town was so charming and friendly, we feasted on fish at a local sea food restaurant when we arrived, and once again right before we left on Sunday afternoon at a local annual festival celebrating the fresh catch of <a href="http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tainha">Tainha</a>...MAN!! The sun was out in force, and under a giant tent chockablock with family feasters, we bonded with one of the festival major domos, a kindly older gentleman who gave us the lowdown on the history of Tainha in the region (not a native fish, but a few years ago they began laying their eggs there near Bertioga, and it has become quite a local industry)... 20 bucks bought us a giant grilled fish, manioc, potatoes, veggies, which we sprinkled liberally with lemons and limes and devoured--mmmmmmmmmmmmm...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary gets ready to chow down at the Tainha Fstival, Bertioga Brazil, 7/5/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/brazil09_5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/brazil09_5_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">click to enlarge | </span><br />
<br />
I LOVE BRAZIL!! What a gorgeous country--and the people I met there--everyone of them--- were soooo friendly and helpful and gracious...(and the same goes for Colombia, in fact, as you'll see)....<br />
<br />
Then it was back to SP traveling over some of the most scenic, lush countryside I've ever glimpsed outside India a couple years ago... I took some pictures out the window of the weird Alphaville-ish cityscape at 1:30am, and at 6:30am in the morning I was off to the airport for my 5 and a half hour flight to verdant, radiant COLOMBIA...<br />
<br />
Spent the first day getting oriented in the company of Andrew's elegant and soulful wife, Colombian stage and screen actress Esther Farfan and their great enthusiastic son Max, ensconced in a really lovely hotel the Lugano Suites with a fantastic rear view of Montserrate...<br />
<br />
then it was work work work in the studio under the benevolent guidance of my old friend Andrew and his crew of crack Latin musicians, laying down multiple guitar tracks of Stones' classics I had arranged in NYC, the folks in the studio were super great and the works went so fast, they captured a wonderful sound on both my '46 Gibson J-45 and '66 Strat...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary and Colombian pop singer Juan Galeano take a break from the studio, Pirate Cove Studio, Bogota Colombia, 7/7/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_1_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Misty Mountain Hop: Gary in Bogota Colombia, 7/8/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_2_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary with legendary producer Andrew Loog Oldham and Colombian pop musician Juan Galeano in the studio, Bogota Colombia, 7/9/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_3_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary and Colombian pop singer Juan Galeano tear it up at the Black Mama, Bogota Colombia, 7/7/09 | photo by Silvia Bustamente</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_5_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary after interview with Ingrid Gonzalez and Sofia Villar Forero for ShoworldMusic.com, Bogota Colombia, 7/7/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_6_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Welcome to the Jungle: Gary and Caroline Sinclair, Apulo Colombia, 7/13/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_7.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_7_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">click to enlarge | photo by Esther Farfan</span><br />
<br />
Juan Galeano and I played a very cool set one night at the swinging Black Mama club who run a weekly music night under the name Circobeat, we did 4 songs including a terrific version of "Mojo Pin" sung by Juan that gave me chills he was so soulful and passionate in his vocals, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=102940842028&ref=mf">here's a clip of us performing one of Juan's songs</a> courtesy the folks at Showorld.com, a Colombian music website who arranged an interview outside the club before we went on with lovely Sofia Villar Forero and Ingrid Gonzalez...there are some amazing shots also of our set taken by <a href="http://www.silviabustamante.com/">Silvia Bustamente</a> which you can view <a href="http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=88788&id=97059173591">here</a>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 78%;">Esther Farfan and Caroline Sinclair, Bogota El Dorado Airport, 7/9/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_11.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_11_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">click to enlarge</span><br />
<br />
The next day I went and did an interview with Juan, Andrew and Max sitting in for the national rock radio station <a href="http://www.radionica.gov.co/">Radionica Colombia</a> with hosts Willie Vergara and Philippe Siegenthaler, they played a whole bunch of my music while I waxed rhapsodic about coming to Colombia to record and play (quite naturally!)...that night Caroline flew in from NYC to join me and my studio work finished, we spent a delightful day together culminating in seeing the amazing Cuban ensemble Orquestra Aragon in downtown Colombia with Andrew and Esther...and then we took a 2 hour magical mystery tour in the dark to the jungles of Apulo outside Bogota, arriving 2am or thereabouts to Andrew's jungle fortress compound, which I have to say was as comfortable and luxurious a hideaway as anything you could imagine, nestled away in a secluded valley miles away from civilization, we swam there and feasted and just chilled out for 3 days of pure bliss, taking long hikes every morning into the jungle...I am so so glad I had the chance to relax out in the country for a few days in both Bertioga in Brazil and Apulo in Colombia this trip, my life seems such a series of rare stolen moments when I finally do get to mellow out in between the frenetic run-up to recording and touring (which, don't get me wrong, is sheer bliss in the actual moment I'm making music live or in the studio)...and I have the warmth of the sun within me tonight remembering all the good times in Latin America as I write this...<br />
<br />
and then it was back to lovely misty Bogota on Tuesday late afternoon and last minute shopping and sightseeing on Wednesday (a visit to the spectacular Montserrate monastery overlooking Bogota via tram way up the mountain side)...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Gary and Juan at the Theatre of the All-Seeing Eye (note flag of Colombia), Bogota, 7/16/09</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_10.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_10_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Backstage in Bogota with Yeimily Medrano, star of the highest rated soap opera on Colombian national tv</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_8.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_8_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">Backstage at The Theatre of the All-Seeing Eye, Bogota 7/15/09 l to r: Jose Sanchez, Angela de Sanchez, Caroline and Gary, Yeimily Medrano, and Juan Pablo Lizarazo</span><br />
<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/bogota09_9_100.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 78%;">click to enlarge</span><br />
<br />
and that evening I played a special solo concert at the way-cool Theatre of the All-Seeing Eye in downtown Bogota with my special guest Juan Galeano and received such a great reception from so many of the new friends and new fans I'd made on the trip, I so hated to leave the next morning but leave we did at the ungodly hour of 6:30am for the airport, as I had to get back to NYC and rehearse my guys for this show last night at the Living Room...<br />
<br />
and prepare for my next sojourns...<br />
<br />
Meanwhile check out this new music video young Gods and Monsters keyboards and trombone whiz Joe Hendel created for a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycxbvWIh6IY">"LuvzOldSweetSong"</a>, a track from our forthcoming studio album produced by Jerry Harrison--a clip featuring my guys plus young It Boy around town, <a href="http://www.nypost.com/pagesixmag/issues/20081116/Liam+McMullans+Scenester+Diaries">Liam McMullan</a> (Patrick's kid)...<br />
<br />
also check out the <a href="http://colunistas.ig.com.br/lucioribeiro/2009/07/19/poploaded-116-the-varonil-issue/">complete Pop Loaded show</a> featuring my 4 solo clips, which I just got sent a link to by the lovely <a href="http://www.myspace.com/bean_jean">Ana Carolina Monteiro (Ana Bean)</a>.<br />
<br />
and listen to the <a href="http://musica.ig.com.br/upload/PopLoaded116.mp3">special radio edition of Pop Loaded</a>, where host Lúcio Ribeiro spins the audio portions of some of the clips I recorded, plus a whole bunch more of my music, intermingled with cool tracks by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arctic Monkeys, and Noir Desir, and raps about Howard Stern, Johnny Marr, and, uh...<br />
<br />
(don't speak Portuguese...<br />
<br />
or Spanish for that matter...<br />
<br />
yet!)<br />
<br />
<br />
xxLove<br />
<br />
<br />
GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-24145460408448657562009-06-30T06:53:00.009-04:002009-07-06T08:47:12.153-04:00Go into Bright, Find the LightWhen Lieven Bertels, atistic coordinator of the Holland Festival in Amsterdam approached me last January here in NYC and commissioned a new live score from me for the Netherlands Film Museum's beautifully restored new 35mm print of Abel Gance's silent anti-war masterpiece "J'Accuse" (1919, I jumped at the chance..<br /><br />To be composed in collaboration with the young Dutch-Iranian composer Reza Namavar and the Ensemble Cameleon, a modern Amsterdam-based new music aggregation led by Wilmar Devisser and boasting the talents of such neo-classical stars as violinist/violist Emi Ohi Resnick, his offer to work on this film score to a monumental albeit little-seen film seemed a marvelous challenge which I rose to meet eagerly...<br /><br />Now I had known Lieven since he had booked me with "The Golem" in a venue in Belgium back in the early 90's...and I'd heard of this infamous film by the legendary (but still relatively obscure to the general public) and still controversial French director <a href="http://www.gildasattic.com/gance.html">Gance</a>, whose lengthy restored "Napoleon" had played at Radio City Music Hall in the mid-80's under the auspices of Francis Ford Coppolla, with a symphonic score by his father Carmine...in fact I recall the young cinefantastiqueophiliac Joe Dante (when but a fan, pre-"Gremlins") list "J'Accuse" in his account of the hundred scariest horror films of all time in an article entitled "Dante's Inferno", which ran in the pages of my favorite horror film magazine of the 60's, "Famous Monsters of Filmland", <a href="http://www.bookpalace.com/acatalog/fm18-2.jpg">issue #18</a> to be precise...and there he described the penultimate sequence of "J'Accuse", when the dead from World War I obey on command the voice of another living-dead soldier to rise up and walk the earth once more ("Levez-vous!" Levez-vous!"), their maimed wretched bandaged legions rising up off the blood-soaked earth to stalk and shuffle right off the battlefield in a ghoulish phalanx of zombielike reanimated corpses, to evetually march beneath l'Arc du Triomph--in an unsettling fantastic precursor to actual newsreel footage of the Nazis doing the same some 20-odd years later--and on into the French countryside, returning to the homes of their loved ones to glare balefully at them through cottage windows, to check on whether their surviving family members have been ethical and honorable spouses and family members in their death-absence...an absolutely chilling and horrific sequence, albeit from a film I'd never seen till very recently, only had heard described (like my first close encounter with "The Golem", which I also first read about and seen stills from in the ages of FM--my appetite ha been whetted)...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"J'Accuse" premiere, Holland Festival 2009, 6/24/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_7.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_7_100.jpg"></a><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_8.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_8_100.jpg"></a><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_9_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">click to enlarge | photos by Bram Belloni</span><br /><br />The film, though running close to 3 hours, was just as intense and worthy of attention as I'd heard upon finally viewing it on DVD...and over the last few months I began working on the score intensively, in tandem with Reza and Wilmar, who became constant telephone companions as we correlated scenes together and argued over who would score which sequence, here was a lot of give and take here to be sure...lovely Japanese-Jewish Emi Ohi Resnick was in town in April for a concert with a Dutch string quartet she plays in and it gave me the opportunity to go into the studio and put down violin parts over the title sequence music which I had composed on my 1946 Gibson J-45, you can hear my title music demo recorded by my guy Jason Candler (and also some of Reza's music for the Ensemble Cameleon...and more from me) here in a <a href="http://www.vk.tv/film/article1244943.ece/Jaccuse">sequence of music from the film</a> which previewed in the pages of the Dutch national newspaper De Volkskrant last week in the run-up to the actual "J'Accuse" premiere held on Tuesday and Wednesday nights June 23rd and 24th in the Rabozaal of the Staddschouwburg in Amsterdam...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Joris, Wilmar, Sonja, Gary, Emi, Floris, Andrew, Reza and Bart at the "J'Accuse" premiere, Holland Festival 2009, Staddschouwburg Amsterdam, 6/24/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">At Cafe Stanislavsky before "J'Accuse" at the Holland Festival, Amsterdam, 6/24/09<br />Gary & the Ensemble Camelon w/ collaborator Reza Namavar<br />l to r: Floris Mijnders (cello), Reza, moi, Andre Heuvelman (trumpet), Joris Ven Rijn (violin), Emi Ohi Resnick (violin, viola), Wilmar Devisser (bass), Sonja Van Beek (violin), Bart De Vrees (perc)</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/a'dam0609_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/a'dam0609_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Suffice to say, it was a stone gas and an honour for me to work on the score with such talented and sympathetic folks at the EC and Reza, we really bonded almost instantly from the time I arrived there for rehearsals (the first one--an 8 hour balabusta--landed smack dab on my birthday, June 20th!!) with the guys and gals (Wilmar on bass conducted the Ensemble, whose members comprise Emi, lovely Sonja Van Beek on violin, Joris Ven Rijn violin, Bart De Vrees percussion, Andrew Heuvelman trumpet, and Floris Mijnders cello)...I took a break in the middle of this rehearsal to race off to De Bijenkorf Deprtment Store in the Daam Square of downtown Amsterdam to play a medley of my music for the film on electric guitar in a relatively hothouse-like show window devoted to events occurring during the <a href="http://www.hollandfestival.nl/page.ocl?pageid=86">Festival</a> (which had a spectacular variety to it over several weeks--including a concers by Antony of Antony and The Johnsons with the Metropole Orchestra, a fim/text/theater multi-media piece entitled The Antonioni Project based on work by the celebrated Italian director, a new version of the opera "Carmen", and much more), Paul B and Esther and their daughter Bibiche were on hand to catch this and Paul snapped a few shots during my performance...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Appearance at De Bijenkorf in Amsterdam, June 2009</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_10.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_10_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">click to enlarge | photo by Esther B</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">At the B-hive (De Bienkorf, Amsterdam) with my driver/roadie Chris Sommers from the Holland Festival, June 2009</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_11.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_11_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Outside the Staddschouwburg in the newly opened Rabozaal after 'J'Accuse' rehearsal, Amsterdam, June 2009</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_12.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_12_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Sonja Van Beek of the Cameleon Ensemble and Gary at 'J'Accuse' rehearsal, June 2009</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_13.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_13_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Reza Namavar in "J'Accuse" rehearsals, June 2009</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_14.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_14_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and co-founder and conductor of the Cameleon Ensemble Wilmar Devisser discuss the finer points of their "J'Accuse" score monster, June 2009</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_15.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_15_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">click to enlarge | photos by Paul B</span><br /><br />Anyway the premiere was a total dream, the audience (sold-out both nights in a venue that held 500 capacity) sat spellbound througout the 3 hours in total silent concentration on the film and our music, you couldnt hear the proverbial pin drop--and then rose spontaneously both nights to give us a standing ovation!! What a thrill it was indeed...and I can't wait to play the work again with my fellow collaborators, our interaction on sections of the film were truly magical, and I am haunted by the spectral images of "J'Accuse" now till the rest of my days, they are burned in my consciousness forever along with the music we created for it...thanks so much again to Pierre Audi, Artistic Director of the Holland Festival, and of course to Lieven Bertils and Sigi Geisler and Dejoere Dejong and all the other talented and sympathetic people who were involved in this undertaking.--THANK YOU for believing in the dream...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary Lucas, June 2009</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_2_100.jpg"></a><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/hfest0609_6_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">click to enlarge | photos by Bram Belloni</span><br /><br />and then it was goodbye Amsterdam, hello Malaga!!<br /><br />Wonderful town, my first time there, a tropical paradise in fact nestled on the Costa Brava in southern Spain, home to my friend, journalist, suthor and agent Hector Marquez and his lovely wife Eliezer (an excellent photographer, in the tradition of Dare Wright)...<br /><br />Hector having hooked up my show at the Valladolid Film Festival last fall outdid himself with the preparations for this gig, and really laid on the charm--4 nights in a lovely beachside hotel overlooking the ocean nd lavish feasts at his favorite restaurants on the beach, in typical southern style beginning post 11pm round midnight...succulent feasts of fried fish, calamares, calamaritos...mmmmmmmmmmmm (and I never was much of a fish eater truth to tell...until Now...couldn't resist gobbling breaded sardines and white fish roasted on spits over an open fire)...and really enjoyed conversing with Hector's charming friends...including Isaki Lacuesta and his wife Isa Campos, Isaki has made a superb documentary about the legendary Gypsy singer <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEj7wL4I1c8">El Camarón de la Isla</a> entitled "La Leyenda del Tiempo (The Legend of Time)", in which a Japanese woman visits the singer's birthplace yearning to discover the secret of his style...I was first turned onto "The Shrimp"'s fantastic music by my friend the great Dutch painter Joep Ver back in the early 90's, and have been an enormous fan of his music ever since...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Before closing the Malaga Film Fest with "The Golem", Malaga Spain 6/26/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga01_524.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/malaga01_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Hector Marquez | click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Another oceanside feast brought forth the company of Hector's friends the celebrated Spanish novelist <a href="http://www.diariosur.es/20081009/cultura/jose-antonio-garriga-vela-20081009.html">Jose Antonio Garriga</a>, and his lovely wife, Blanca Machuca, a professor of scenography (theatrical design)...they were both en route to Venezuela to attend a conference on the work of one of my favorite writers, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3070879.stm">Roberto Bolano</a> organized by Bolano's widow...such charming conversationalists all, I found their company remarkably invigorating...<br /><br />and as for the gig??<br /><br />YEAHHHHHH....(I miss Malaga!!)<br /><br /> I closed the Malaga Film Festival with "The Golem" to a resounding ovation from the audience...such warm and friendly folks in Malaga, such erudite questions and observations on the music and the film at the evening's end...it was a wonderful climax to my 10 day trip to Europe, made even more piquant by the visit to Malaga of my friends the amazing and lovely vocalist Marina Conti from Rome, and the fantastic producer/recording engineer Harold Burgon and his lovely wife Kate, who came to Malaga from Harold's recording studio down the road apiece in Granada for the show, we all went out to a Turkish fast food restaurant off the beach at 1am afterwards (well that was the only restaurant that remained open at that hour!) and had a fun old time of it reminiscing (Harold engineered my earliest records with Rolo McGinty of The Woodentops, including "Skin the Rabbit" and "Astronomy Domine" back in the mid 80's, and recently remixed "Coming Clean" for me) and scheming for the future...<br /><br />Back home in NYC now for less than a day...relaxing with Caroline and Lulu (hah!!)...<br /><br />Tonight I'm off to fly to Sao Paulo Brazil, to close the <a href="http://www.spterror.com/filmes/golem.html">1st International Fantasy Film Festival of Sao Paulo-SP Terror</a> with "The Golem"...<br /><br /> I also am recording a solo performance for the Brazilian Pop Load website and their radio show <a href="http://colunistas.ig.com.br/lucioribeiro/category/radio-poploaded/">Poploaded</a> while there...<br /><br />and then it's off to Bogota Colombia next week, for a mystery recording date and a performance with...<br /><br />well...<br /><br />wouldn't you like to know???<br /><br />Keep watching this space :-)<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-73676098998061003132009-06-17T21:10:00.017-04:002009-07-05T14:27:24.218-04:00Know that Friends Don't Mind Just How GrowElectricitee de la musique: <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_7.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px;" src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_7.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Gods and Monsters 20th Anniversary Show at the lovely Gramercy Theater on 23rd Street last Thursday night June 11th was a stone gas, a celebration of my hard working band guys Ernie Brooks, Billy Ficca, Jason Candler and Joe Hendel, and some very cool friends (Alan Vega, Lenny Kaye, Jon Spencer, Dean Bowman, Peter Stampfel, Mike Edison, and compere/singer Dusty Wright)--a testimony once again to the power of music to lift and transport the collective audience (as well as a yrs truly--I was in a kind of enjoyable trance throughout, it was truly like a dream reeling off nearly two and half hours of music with only a 10 min. break/change 'o clothes in such a fantastic old theater setting, with the best lighting and sound--yeah!!)...<br /><br />You can read a review of it <a href="http://www.culturecatch.com/music/gary-lucas-gods-monsters-review">here</a>, from CultureCatch.com.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Jon Spencer joins Gods and Monsters at their 20th Anniversary Show for "The Train Kept a Rollin'", Gramercy Theater NYC 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_6_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Yvonne Ericson | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Mike Edison, Ernie Brooks, Gary, Billy Ficca, Dusty Wright, Jon Spencer, Lenny Kaye, Jason Candler, and Joe Hendel, Gods and Monsters 20th Anniversary Show @ Gramercy Theater NYC 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_5_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Michel Delsol | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"One Man's Meat" goes down a treat, Gods and Monsters 20th Anniversary Show, Gramercy Theater NYC 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_4_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Michel Delsol | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gods and Monsters 20th Anniversary Blow-Out at Gramercy Theater NYC 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_2_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Howard Thompson | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gods and Monsters 20th Anniversary Blow-Out at Gramercy Theater NYC 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Howard Thompson | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary Lucas, Jon Spencer, Jason Candler, Gods and Monsters 20th Anniversary Show @ Gramercy Theater NYC 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_9_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Michel Delsol | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary Lucas, Jon Spencer, Jason Candler, Gods and Monsters 20th Anniversary Show @ Gramercy Theater NYC 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_8.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_8_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Michel Delsol | click to enlarge</span><br /><br />In the house were Giorgio Gomelsky, Danny Fields, Howard Thompson, Steve Paul, Jane Friedman, Caroline, Glenn Kenny and Claire, Tiffany Barbarash, Paul Mauceri, Ricky Ohrbach (who threw a great pre-gig party for the band at his loft near the Gramercy), Yvonne Ercison, Mark Larson, Jerry Roche, Sally Kirkland, Nicole Kafka, Kenny and Mi Ling, Peter Bull, Betsy Wollheim, and a host of other friends and supporters who will probably kick me for leaving out their names here but these are the first come to mind, the place was packed and they were applauding and cheering throughout (loudly)...I am too knackered to write a full blow-by-blow account of it as I am running to finish stuff before catching a plane for Amsterdam, (wait for some fan clips to surface on YouTube)...meanwhile you can see a clip of me and Alan performing our new song <a href="http://northforksound.blogspot.com/2009/06/beefheart-suicide.html">"Life Kills"</a> from the show here at North Fork Sound, thanks to Howard Thompson...and there are or will be photos galore posted by Tanya herein by Howard, Michaela Warren, and the wonderful Michel Delsol who shot a <a href="http://garylucas.com/brightly/voice.jpg">centerfold pic</a> of me back in the day (1992) for the Village Voice, and who was covering all the action at this one :-)...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary solo, Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_15.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_15_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Howard Thompson | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Alan Vega, Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_14.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_14_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Michel Delsol | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Dean Bowman (Chase the Devil), Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_13.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_13_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Michel Delsol | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Lenny Kaye, Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_12.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_12_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Michel Delsol | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary solo, Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_11.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_11_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Michel Delsol | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Dean Bowman (Chase the Devil), Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_10.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_10_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Michel Delsol | click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Just back from dinner at Alfama, our favorite Portuguese restaurant down the road apiece, with Caroline and our old friend the extremely lovely <a href="http://www.myspace.com/melissamars">Melissa Mars</a>, in town from Paris for a few weeks, Melissa is a very very talented singer, actress and collaborator (I wrote a song with her called "Little Blue" that graced her last album on French Universal) and she is about to star in a new musical--"Mozart l'Opera Rock"--opening in Paris in September in the 4000 seater Palais des Sports... based on the life of Mozart, it's directed by Olivier Dahan, who helmed that great "Piaf" biopic starring Marion Cotillard last year...and the musical features Melissa as Mozart's first love, the one who breaks his heart (naturellement)...<br /><br />In the run-up to the 20th anniversary show we got all kinds of good press notices in NYC , and I did some media jaunts, did a promo solo acoustic taping one afternoon at Time Out New York's retro-fitted capacious hang during the office lunch break which you can check out on their music website "The Volume" <a href="http://www3.timeoutny.com/newyork/thevolume/2009/06/perfect-pitch-gary-lucas-shreds-his-fiery-avant-blues-live-at-our-office/">here</a>...and Jason Gross wrote a nice preview of our show in the mag itself complete with colour photo <a href="http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/music/75245/gary-lucas-with-gods-and-monsters-at-gramercy-theatre-concert-preview">here</a>...The New Yorker weighed in with a <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/ny_pick_0609.png">feature pick</a> as well in The Nightlife section courtesy of John Donohue...and Jason and I skipped the light fandango down to WBAI's estimable studios at midnight one night after rehearsal's to guest on the legendary Bob Fass' Radio Unnameable show as a duo...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_22.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_22_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Michel Delsol | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary solo, Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_21.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_21_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Michel Delsol | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary solo, Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_20.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_20_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Howard Thompson | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary solo, Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_19.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_19_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Howard Thompson | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary solo, Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_18.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_18_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Howard Thompson | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary solo, Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_17.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_17_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Michel Delsol | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Peter Stampfel, Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show, 6/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_16.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/gramercy0609_16_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Howard Thompson | click to enlarge</span><br /><br />I'll write more about the anniversary show itself in subsequent blogs, meanwhile extra special thanks to Harvey Leeds and Matt Saril at Headquarters, and all the folks at Live Nation...Harvey invited me out Wed. night this week to see this hot new all female band from Norway called <a href="http://www.myspace.com/katzenjammerne">Katzenjammer</a> do their set at the Mercury Lounge, they were a big hit at SXSW this year--and they were incredible, kind of like Gogol Bordello meets Abba, the four lissome lasses could sing up a storm, they harmonized together beautifully, and tossed and switched their instruments to each other during the set effortlessly...check out their new single "A Bar in Amsterdam" for a really good time (where I'm heading tomorrow night...to Amsterdam, that is--not a bar!)...<br /><br />Meanwhile Karl Lippegaus at national German radio Deutschlandfunk devoted a 2 hour show to my music on June 6th, check out the playlist <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/dates/soundcheck.htm">here</a>, he spun a fair amount from my new album with Najma Akhtar, "Rishte", which is out this week (finally! good things are always worth waiting for) in the UK and Europe on World Village/Harmonia Mundi...and what terrific reviews it's getting: <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/mojo0709.jpg">4 stars in MOJO</a> as well as <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/Rishte_fRoots_June_09.pdf">fRoots</a>, we got a <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/Songlines_July_2009.pdf">Top of the World pick</a> in the new Songlines, and this week the Financial Times gave it <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/ft_rishte_0609.pdf">5 Stars</a>!! The <a href="http://www.hautefidelite-hifi.com/disques.php?disque_id=21#disque">first French review</a> has surfaced too in Haute Fidelite, where it received 4 stars...and the news from Down Under is equally celebratory, as we <a href="http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/blog/?p=3248">scored a rave</a> in Cyclic Defrost music magazine...and today (I mean yesterday!) in Australia, "Rishte" was selected as the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/rn/dailyplanet/stories/2009/2597024.htm">Featured CD of the Day</a> on National Australian Radio network ABC...<br /><br />And the best is yet to come...wait till Najma and I hit the boards with this music again (keeo watching this space!)...<br /><br />Have to turn in now, big day tomorrow, traveling to Amsterdam to perform a new live score written in collaboration with Dutch-Iranian composer Reza Namavar and the Cameleon Ensemble under the baton of Wilmar Devisser, and featuring violinist par excellence Emi Ohi Resnick to <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/dates/j'accuse.jpg">accompany a screening</a> of Abel Gance's 1924 silent anti-war masterpiece "J'Accuse"...UK Film Historian Kevin Brownlow (*"The Parade's Gone By") will be there to introduce the film too...we do three days intensive rehearsal and then next Tuesday and Wed. June 23rd and 24th we will hold forth at the grand Staddschouwburg for the world premiere...expect instrumental fireworks (natuurlijk), percussive thunder, and electronic fugues and fantasias in surround-sound (yes, it will be a very 3D, very visceral presentation...set the Azimuth Coordinator for the heart of the sun)...<br /><br />then it's off to the sultry Gold Coast of Spain to close the Malaga Film Festival with "The Golem"...<br /><br />then home to NYC for one day only... <br /><br />before I head to Sao Paulo Brazil to close the <a href="http://www.spterror.com">1st International Fantasy Film Festival of Sao Paulo-SP Terror</a> with <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/dates/Golem_with_GaryLucas.html">"The Golem"</a>...<br /><br />and then...<br /><br />(when the time is right.<br /><br />all shall be revealed...<br /><br />for your ears only!)<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-59586133107603735022009-05-31T19:26:00.010-04:002009-09-17T15:57:52.854-04:00Too Noir...Too Strong"Jostle hassle elbow bustle, in a swirling rainbow tussle..."<br /><br />What a great goddamn gig Dean Bowman and I had as Chase the Devil Friday night at BAMcafe out in Brooklyn, place was packed too, blessings to all the old friends and fans who showed including Moishe Rosenfeld of Goldenland Concerts, Erik Anjou and his lovely friend from the Dallas JCC (went out for crepes with Moishe and co. afterwards on Ludlow Street at midnight, a joint operated by a very hip Israeli family, best crepes I've had since playing in Paris a couple years ago near Les Halles mmmmmmmm)...also, Michael Owen and his wife (Michael is a great film and video maker who did some of the best of the Talking Heads videos, among others), also Day-V my indefatigable roadie who was having a night off (I don't use all that many fx for this project, don't need 'em) and got there to dig it on his own steam, and myriad other folks including shock! horror! a fan who told me after the gig that he was an actual choirboy in a congregation presided over by my dear departed friend Bishop <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Moore">Paul Moor</a>e (peace activist, gay rights activist, trustee of Yale University, Paul and I went and checked out the William Blake exhibition together at the Met Museum about a year before he died, I shocked him a bit then by insisting he also peruse the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balthus">Balthus</a> exhibition which was running at the Met concurrent with the Blake, good old Klossowski never fails to raise a pulse of delight--or disgust--and in the words of Little Richard apropos Jimi Hendrix, "Isn't that what you really want? All...or none??"--in whomsoever beholder trains an eye upon his paintings)...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Newly svelte Gary and Dean Bowman Chase the Devil at BAM Cafe, Brooklyn, 5/29/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0509_3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0509_3_75.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary chases the devil at BAM Cafe, Brooklyn, 5/29/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0509_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0509_1_75.jpg"></a><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0509_2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0509_2_75.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and Dean Bowman Chase the Devil at BAM Cafe, Brooklyn, 5/29/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0509_4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0509_4_75.jpg"></a><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0509_5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0509_5_75.jpg"></a><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0509_6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/ctd0509_6_75.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photos by Earl Douglas | click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Drink the long draft down for the original Hip Priest...Paul use to come and see me play with Gods and Monsters at the old Knitting Factory on Houston Street back in the day, and was a great source of spiritual guidance, comfort and jouissance, he good-shepherded me through a very dark period indeed for me in the mid-90's with some sage advice...when he died, I was invited by his family to sit in the VIP section of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine alongside Kurt Vonnegut and other luminaries/close family/Friends of Paul for a very High Anglican funeral, I only lasted about 4 hours there (the pews were really unforgiving, I did a lot better a couple years ago at a 6 hour Monsoon Wedding in Goa--there one got to sit on cushions and drink Chai tea and wander in and out at will throughout, something I didn't think I could pull off at Paul's do)...nearly choked on the incense also...stayed there long enough though to actually hear a wonderful choral version of one of the great John Fahey showpiece hymn arrangements, "In Christ There is No East or West" (good title)...turns out it's an actual hymn with lyrics from the African-American Church tradition--a hymn I naturally laid on Dean Bowman when we assembled our repertoire for our Chase the Devil thingy...btw, you can hear a new Chase the Devil studio track, "Nobody's House" , which we recorded with Steve Addabbo (Shawn Colvin, Suzanne Vega) at the controls recently, up now on my <a href="http://www.myspace.com/garylucas">myspace jukebox</a>--an original song of ours which brought the house down Friday night...<br /><br />Also please note, as you can see from the pix web-mistress Tanya has sprinkled throughout here I am at fighting weight once again, rendered a trim lean mean machine through diet and exercise, kids, diet and exercise (you can indeed try this at home)...in the yin and yang and clang of the yankee reaper we move from the divine afflatus (my new album with Najma Akhtar, "Rishte", about to drop on Harmonia Mundi/World Village June 15th in Europe--<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/Rishte_fRoots_June_09.pdf">the advance reviews are killer</a>, plus we have a <a href="http://www.myspace.com/worldvillagerishte">spiffy new MySpace site</a> where you can be-Friend us--go ahead, make our day!--and also preview tracks from the album--I think this is one of the best albums I have ever been involved with--no lie) to epicurean nostalgie de la boue (a recent solo appearance at celebrated music writer Barney Hoskyns' publication party for his new Tom Waits biography "Lowside of the Road--A Life of Tom Waits", where I performed 4 Waits favorites in the company of CultureCatch.com's Dusty Wright, lovely Vandana Jain, and Ed Bennett, keeper of The Center couple blocks from my house in the West Village, where they held this louche salon--packed to the rafters with rockcrits such as Michael Azzerrad, Billy Altman, Andy Schwartz, plus various lovers, muggers and thieves...check it out <a href="http://culturecatch.com/events/barney-hoskyns-book-salon-tom-waits">here</a>)...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Vandana Jain, Dusty Wright and Gary perform at the Book Salon for music writer Barney Hoskyns' new Tom Waits biography "Low Side of the Road", The Center, NYC, 5/11/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/vdg.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/vdg_75.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Further on down the road in the folderol dept. would have to be an impromptu momente musicale performed for a very amused (offstage) Caroline with my friend Soo Catwoman's daughter Dion October (leader of the band Good Weather Girl) in London recently, check out our rendition of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHYM90yZlE0&feature=channel_page">John Lennon's "Cold Turkey"</a>--aye that's a lovely tune--which I had performed solo in NYC shortly before departing for jolly old Blighty at an event in honor of the 40th anniversary of the John and Yoko Montreal Bed-in (remember a day) held at the deluxe, newly refurbished, sin-encrusted Gershwin Hotel ("our love is here to stay"--not!)--way cool joint, watering hole to a myriad discerning budget-minded Europeans, I sang it quick to kick off the proceedings (Neke Carson asked me "Hey, will you do a John Lennon song at my John and Yoko tribute?" Well, this is my favorite John Lennon song, although one not necessarily in the spirit of the Bed-in)...then split with old pal Etienne Mirlesse and his lovely daughter to favorite Portuguese restaurant Alfama in the West Village, which sad to say is going the way of all the best places it seems in the West Village (Biography Bookshop is another one) due to greedy landlord rapaciousness...thank goodness both Alfama and the BB are relocating elsewhere in Manhattan...meanwhile--what's the flip side to "Cold Turkey" in rainy olde London town? Why, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQuJFjIZeUg&feature=channel_page">"Here Comes the Sun"</a>, naturally!!...a good song to have running in the background while perusing this <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/Jma032.pdf">recent feature interview</a> about my life's work from the Manchester Jewish Telegraph...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Dion October, Soo Catwoman, and Gary, Swiss Cottage Hotel London 5/09 | photo by Caroline Sinclair</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/london0509_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/london0509_1_100.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Speaking of UK collaborators, my old friend DJ Cosmo a/k/a Colleen Murphy has cooked up a soupcon of delight in the form of the 4th single from our avant-dance project Wild Rumpus...this one's called "Kazan" (Japanese for "volcano")--the follow-up to "Rock the Joint" (the video for which is now over 65,000 hits on all websites)--and it's due out on the hip Japanese label Mule Mudiq at the end of June...preview it now <a href="http://www.myspace.com/wildrumpusmusic">on the jukebox</a>....<br /><br />Coming up--the fabulous Gods and Monsters 20th Anniversary gala on Thursday June 11th to be held at the sumptuous Gramercy Theater, a great venue on 23rd Street in Manhattan reminiscent of the old Fillmore East at its best...alongside my Gods and Monsters guys Ernie Brooks, Billy Ficca, Jason Candler and Joe Hendel (New York's finest) will be special guests the legendary Alan Vega (Suicide), Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith), Peter Stampfel (Holy Modal Rounders)--and--omigod--rangy blues twanger Jon Spencer (Blues Explosion), who will join me in a sick pas de deux on the Johnny Burnette/Yardbirds classic "The Train Kept a' Rollin'" (they got it right there) (looked so good Jack couldn't let her go)...Mike Edison will add appropriate frissons on his theremin during "One Man's Meat".. Dean Bowman, one of the best singers on the planet, will put his pipes in the service of the anniversary with a couple numbers from Chase the Devil... and the whole evening will be emceed by the erudite Mr. Dusty Wright...it's only 20 bucks too, such a deal!!...gonna kick-off the evening solo, then move into duos with some of these guys, and then--my excellent band will take the stage...it was 20 years ago today (or thereabouts--mid-July 1989 to be precise) that Gods and Monsters first raised its barbaric yawp 'oer the rooftops of the world (well, under the arch in Prospect Park) when we blew out the PA during the second number at the Welcome Back to Brooklyn Festival--Yardbirds producer Giorgio Gomelsky was there to video the proceedings in all their glory, and he promised to give me a quicktime archival clip to put up just in time for this anniversary show on the garylucas YouTube channel--so very very soon you then witness me, Tony Thunder Smith, Paul Now and Jared Nickerson kick it live in the first incarnation of the Gods and Monsters Beast--<br /><br />What a long strange trip it's been indeed :-)<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Fans of Gods and Monsters--Vaclav Havel and David Byrne join Gary, Jerry Harrison and Ernie Brooks backstage at the Knitting Factory after a Gods and Monsters show 11/07</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/kf11-06-2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/kf11-06-2t.jpg"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by John Bentham | click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Thanks to all for sharing the ride with me...<br /><br />the best is yet to come...<br /><br />xxLove<br /><br />GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-70921295481053153122009-05-03T09:20:00.012-04:002009-05-04T20:35:20.699-04:00The ClassicalHad quite an entertaining live appearance on Bob Fass' late night "Radio Unnameable" program on Thursday April 23rd at midnight...Fass is a NYC treasure, check out this great profile, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/12/04/061204fa_fact_fisher">"Voice of the Cabal"</a> from The New Yorker...and also <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa0Vvp22uO0">this trailer</a> for a documentary about Radio Unnameable...<br /><br />I first started listening to Bob's show in a kind of lost year for me back in 1975...I had recently graduated from college, and vague plans to open a cinema showing nothing but horror and science fiction films with my partner <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Moseley">Bill Moseley</a>, (we had done this horror movie thingy as a weekly event at Yale under the aegis Things That Go Bump in the Night) had remained vague; in any case, I found myself cooling out over the summer in Nantucket and managed to snag a gig playing solo guitar during Happy Hour at the estimable Brotherhood of Thieves restaurant/hotel the day I arrived there--and met the first true love of my life at the bookstore across the street (I love hanging out in bookstores), a much older woman (much--she was 56, I was 22--an incredibly wise woman, super-creative, magical...and very very sexy) and, and well, uh, eventually moved in with her on the upper west side here in NYC that fall. Where I listened to a lot of WBAI, her favorite station (Pacifica Radio's flagship freeform station)...and that is where I caught Bob Fass in action for the first time, spinning Dylan's brand new "Blood on the Tracks" album weeks before its official release...I dug this guy's on-air style and laid-back hipster approach a lot, having been the music director at Yale's WYBC FM myself for a year or so and holding forth over the aether with my own show "The Sounds from England (and other delicacies)" (s'funny, but the two other non-English delicacies I regularly spun on my program were Tim Buckley and Captain Beefheart--and you know the story, I eventually wound up playing with Beefheart, and with Tim Buckley's son Jeff)...<br /><br />Anywho over the years I managed to hear some of Bob Fass' celebrated air-checks, perhaps the most famous is the time he had Dylan and Dylan's then running-buddy my pal Bobby Neuwirth up at WBAI during a hiatus in NYC from recording "Blonde on Blonde" in Nashville, the date was January 26th 1966...Dylan gets on the mic and starts taking listener's calls and, well, this is a classical exercise in "oh snap!" adrenaline-rapping in which pretty much every well-meaning and innocent fan is sucked into the maw of Dylan's then razor-lined defense mechanism, into which they are all and sundry rendered unto mince-meat or in some gentler moments silly putty, you can check out 12 YouTube audio clips of the entire show beginning <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyy0ED8ZDPw">here</a>..."Why are some of your songs so long?" "I get paid by the word..."<br /><br />So years later Bob Fass and I have become Fass friends and he's had me on his program a bunch of times, this occasion I was summoned to celebrate the release of Dylan's new album "Together Through Life", which I like a lot--"hypnotist collector" Mitch Blank provided an advance copy of the record, and we sat there and listened and commented and then I played a bunch solo acoustic, debuting some new songs, the legendary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krassner">Paul Krassner</a> called in, I used to love his magazine The Realist all the time in the late 60's, he was in excellent form on Bob's show and I am glad to hear he is <a href="http://www.paulkrassner.com/">still going strong</a>. I asked him to elucidate on the writing of perhaps his greatest comedic achievement, "The Parts Left Out of the Manchester Book" and he had me and Bob's unpaid assistant (and hopefully the listening audience) spellbound...Paul has a regular blog on the Huffington Post, check it out <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-krassner/">here</a>, certainly Paul Krassner is one of the last of the gonzo truth-tellers in the sacred American tradition of visionaries on the order of Lenny Bruce and Hunter Thompson...it was a good night and the program is up for the moment at the WBAI archives, check it out <a href="http://archive.wbai.org/allshows.php">here</a> (scroll down to the April 24th Radio Unnameable entry at 12:00am to download it)...<br /><br />Wednesday April 29th the Blaueu String Quartet from Amsterdam held forth at the Teatro in the Italian Academy up at Columbia University and they were simply sensational, I felt really bad that more folks hadn't been alerted to this event as it truly was some of the finest interpretive playing I've ever heard...they all played magnificently together in a program that touched on Schubert's Quartersatz in C Minor, a single movement piece that has to rank with "Death and the Maiden" as the greatest of his quartets...by far the highlight of the program was the final piece, Janacek's 1923 String Quartet No. 1, "The Kreutzer Sonata", inspired by Tolstoy's short story, one of the most modern of musical compositions which really provides a programmatic narrative rush in the way the music enfolds as a macabre momento mori, as a chilling tale of jealous passions so stirred by the apprehension of classical music itself as to render the protagonist capable of explosive violence...Nienke Van Rijn on violin, Michaekl Gieler on viola, and Johan Van Iersel on cello were all superb, but for me the real joy of the evening was observing the incredible <a href="http://www.emiohiresnick.info/Site/Welcome.html">Emi Ohi Resnick</a> in action. Emi is of Japanese-Jewish descent and is simply one of the finest violinists I've ever heard, ever--she has a riveting presence on stage and a nuance of touch and expressive fluidity on her instrument that just knocked me out...she really shone also in a rendition of Hungarian composer Kodaly's Duo for Violin and Cello with her husband Johan Van Iersel...and I am soooo happy to be working with her on the collaborative score I am composing and performing live along with Reza Namavar and Wilmar Devisser and the Cameleon Ensemble at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam June 23rd and 24th at the Staadschouburg, accompanying a screening of Abel Gance's silent anti-war masterpiece "J'Accuse", newly restored by the Netherlands Film Museum--you can see the flyer for the show <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/dates/j%27accuse.jpg">here</a>...stay tuned...<br /><br />Last night <a href="http://www.ninawinthropanddancers.org/">Nina Winthrop and Dancers</a> presented an incandescent program of modern dance pieces at the St. Mark's Church Danspace entitled "Glee", and Caroline and i were rapt through an hour plus voyage into the unconscious mind made manifest, the choreography was superb and perfectly fit the scores prepared by minimalist composer <a href="http://www.jongibson.net/">Jon Gibson</a>, a long time member of Phillip Glass' ensemble...<br /><br />woops, Sunday morning, time for waffles at Le Petite Abeille (yeah!!) ...<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />Gary<br /><br />ps Also wanted to alert you guys to a <a href="http://garylucas.com/solo.shtml">brand new web-page</a> devoted to my solo concerts--<br /><br />Webmaster Tanya has outdone herself here, including embedded clips from my solo appearance at the Holland Festival a couple years ago at the famed Amsterdam Concertegebouw...<br /><br />plus there are a slew of links to YouTube clips of me performing solo in London, Bilbao, and St. Petersburg Russia...<br /><br />also, Dean Bowman and I have just completed our debut album as Chase the Devil at Shelter Island Studios here in Manhattan, with Steve Addabbo at the controls...Steve got a wonderful sound up to what was essentially a live recording of our spiritual roots duo...check out my <a href="http://www.myspace.com/garylucas">myspace site</a> to preview a track from it--our version of William Blake's eternal <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time">"Jerusalem"</a> (music by Sir Hubert Parry).Gary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-7604277636928727282009-04-18T14:28:00.024-04:002009-04-21T22:31:47.477-04:00The Road Never EndsFriday night I had a quite a happy reunion at the White Horse with my old friend Dezso Antal a/k/a Toni, the great sax player for the formidable Hungarian punk/free jazz ensemble The Scientists...<br /><br />Toni was in town with his lovely girlfriend Danielle for a long overdue NYC holiday, hadn't seen him in about 10 years, last time was at the Turm in Halle Germany when his group opened for Gods and Monsters on our spring European tour 2000...Toni is a wonderful guy, he and Scientists leader Dr. Marius had hooked several memorable solo gigs up for me in Budapest in the 90's, including one in an old Communist youth club that will stand with my gig at the Roxy in Prague in '96 for sheer endurance (played for 3 hours straight), these gigs are memorable also as Toni worked at a travel agency at the time and thus booked me several times into a deluxe 4 star hotel/spa on beautiful little Margit Island, a hotel notable for its opulent mudbaths, geo-thermic sulfur immersion pools, massage therapy, etc., all activities running concurrent 24 hours non-stop despite the presence of oh, maybe 3 other guests in the hotel at that point mid-winter, all club activities presided over by smiling muscular Hungarian women eager to pummel you into happy submissive bliss in the general direction of Health Castle and environs..<br /><br />These Margit hotels (there were several of them clustered together on the island) were designed to cater to party apparatchiks and families as a holiday reward for hard time spent pressed into service for Marx and country....I dig dirty old black iron Budapest...alot...<br /><br />My first gig there was in the 2000 seater Petofi Hall solo as part of the Knitting Factory 's Caravan of Stars tour in '91, there was a cd sampler out then entitled "Knitting Factory Tours Europe 1991" with selections from all the acts on the tour, that contains some of the earliest of my recorded solo work, which received excellent notices in places like The Wire...it was a wonderful jaunt, 21 shows in 22 days in 7 countries, a fun but grueling trek through Holland, France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and Austria by train, plane, and our own tourbus (said vehicle originally driven by a maniacal French coke dealer doubling as the bus driver, who was observed jn the hotel room he shared with Knit Fac numero uno Michael Dorf on the first night of the tour burning the midnight oil at 3am chopping up ounces to sell...he was needless to say summarily given the boot, pronto, and a replacement driver flown in by the tourbus company)... my party hearty tour companions on that swing through Europe consisted of James "Blood" Ulmer and his band (the great Amin Ali and Calvin Weston, who was quite a cut-up), the brilliant Thomas Chapin Trio, and Sam Bennett's Chunk, with the excellent Jerome Harris joining them on guitar...<br /><br />But I digress (half the fun of writing these things!)...after our lovely reunion at the White Horse Tavern on Hudson and 11th Street (my local, the infamous 19th century wood-paneled saloon where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death, where I have conducted quite alot of press interviews over the years...and did one this week, in fact, with the Danish jazz journalist Lars Movin...at the end of which a British kid watching the soccer match on the telly in there with his dad approached me for an autograph, claiming he'd recognized me by my hat!)--after we'd toasted our reuniting after a 10 year hiatus, I took Toni and his gal pal to Le Poisson Rouge to catch the second Manhattan show in history from Throbbing Gristle, ye olde UK industrial punk outfit led by my pal Genesis P. Orridge...<br /><br />And, they were in fine form playing before a nearly full house, 95% of whom looked like they hadn't even been born when TG's "United" single first came out in '78 (still have the picture sleeve vinyl 45 in my collection--which they didn't perform that night, too bad!--the B side btw was "Zyklon B Zombie", Zyklon B gas--manufactured by IG Farben--being the lethal constituent piped into the concentration camp "showers" during the Second World War)...Throbbing Gristle made a good sampled squawllng synth racket too, over the the top of which Gen crooned and howled his tales of J.G. Ballardian techno-sex atrocities in songs like the infamous "Hamburger Lady"...<br /><br />A big ugly stentorian martial mechanical mama heartbeat began and overtook most numbers throughout, which had the crowd happily bouncing along.. the last 3 numbers were cranked up to the pain level and beyond volume-wise by the overly zealous soundman, and I admit I had to put a finger in (and they say I'M loud!!)... a good complement to Gen's Psychic TV project, catch TG if you get the chance, they are the only punk/new wave band of that era (circa 1980) rated by Captain Beefheart a/k/a Don Van Vliet as being worth a damn, in an interview he did at York University in England on our 1980 tour (now, I frankly never knew Don to be overly charitable about any artist currently alive, I gyess he saw them all as competition...although in one of my last conversations he told me how he had "seen the best damn trumpet player ever" on Johnny Carson the night before..."Miles, you mean?" I asked innocently..."No man, it was a guy named, uh, Win, Tin, ahhhhh..." "Marsalis," I incredulously finished for him..."Yeah man--that's the guy!! Simply the BEST I've ever seen!!" I argued that Miles had said more with one cracked note from his horn --and he sure cracked some notes on some of my favorite sides-- than Wynton ever did with his perfectly rendered scalar stream of 684 32nd notes...but that's another story)...<br /><br />And I really really like this club Le Poisson Rouge, the Red Fish, one of the best new joints in NYC at the moment... very comfortable, good sight-lines, decent PA, it's relatively large, maybe a 5-600 seater, yet projects an aura of intimacy at the same time... it actually feels more like an art-space than a nightclub, the decor is suitably ruddy roccocco with slowly shifting projections on the wall behind the bandstand that look like a spiky crown of thistles and thorns disentangling (Easter Everywhere)...<br /><br />and here I shall digress again and put in some good words and a big plug for my old friend the lovely and ever-s- talented Juana Molina, who was absolutely sensational performing there on Friday Feb. 27th with her new trio...<br /><br />I first encountered Juana's music quite by chance as I was leaving the studios of WFUV in summer 2003, having performed on Vin Scelsa's long-running, brilliant <a href="http://www.wfuv.org/programs/idiotsdelight.html">"Idiot's Delight" show</a> my solo guitar arrangements of 30's Chinese pop by the famous Chinese divas Chow Hsuan and Bai Kwong, as featured on my 2001 album "The Edge of Heaven--Gary Lucas Plays Mid-Century Chinese Pop" (check out the album <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/epk">here</a>)...and if you like, you can order the cd in its beautiful original packaging directly from my website as it may not be so easy to find now, as it's been out of print for awhile--a situation I am about to rectify)...<br /><br />As I was packing up to leave the radio studio which is located at Fordham University in the Bronx, Vin started spinning a cut off Juana's second self-distributed album without announcing it on air or identifying it to me off-mic--and I was immediately transfixed by Juana's haunting voice, one of the most beautiful and distinctive in contemporary music, nestled in shimmering electronic soundscapes which featured expertly and delicately plucked interlocking folky acoustic guitar counterpoint to the fore--the sound really grabbed me--and I asked Vin who this mysterious woman singing such lilting and transcendent spectral music was, music sung totally in Argentine-accented Spanish (Juana hails from Buenos Aires)... and he told me her name and showed me the cover for her album "Tres Cosas"...<br /><br />At that point in time I was trying to help out the Knitting Factory label's then A&R guy bring in some fresh new artists for their roster--and this music was something so singular and special that it inspired me to imagine it adding lustre to the label (I have gotten a few artists signed in my day--including free jazz saxophonist/composers Peter Gordon and Tim Berne in the mid-80's to CBS Masterworks and Columbia Records respectively, artists I also produced...and I had also done A&R for the very cool indie label Upside Records in the mid 80's...amongst my signings there were Jonathan Richman...The Woodentops...Vic Godard of the seminal Subway Sect...Float Up CP with Neneh Cherry...the fabulous Arthur Russell...Mark Stewart and Maffia: basically Mark with the Tackhead crew of Skip McDonald, Keith LeBlanc, and Doug Wimbish, with Mark and Adrian Sherwood producing--Adrian and Tackhead also recorded for us as Fats Comet... and lastly, Mark Sinclair, a skinny little coffee-colored kid who worked in the ice cream store around the corner from me who convinced first me and then with my prodding Geoff Travis from Rough Trade Records UK that he was a great rapper...you may know him today under his film moniker, Vin Diesel)...<br /><br />I asked Vin Scelsa as to the recording details of the music he had just played by Juana on his program, and he said the album was sent to him directly by a small label in Buenos Aires...I subsequently looked up Juana Molina on the net, found her website, wrote her an email introducing myself, and inquired whether she was a free agent who might consider being signed at that point to a record deal with the Knitting Factory label...and she wrote right back, thanked me for my interest, said she knew my work with Jeff Buckley, and told me she had just signed worldwide with Domino...smart move as it turns out, as the KF label ceased actively signing artists only a few years later and morphed into a catalog label only--now they are about to crank up again as a full-service label and are actively signing artists again, stay tuned)...<br /><br />Juana came to NYC a few months later and I caught her live set at Joe's Pub--and she was just as captivating a personality live as on disc...I saw many subsequent shows of hers in NYC over the years--and she always enchanted; in fact, I would rank both her and another old friend of mine, Yael Naim, as two of the most creative artists making music today, forget about their gender...and I tried my best to sign them both to the Knitting Factory label back in the day...<br /><br />Juana Molina is returning to NYC to play Summerstage on July 8th, and if you are in the city you should definitely come out to see her and her band...they really rocked Le Poisson Rouge in front of a packed and enthusiastic audience when I saw her play there in February, and they will surely rock Summerstage...<br /><br />And rock is not something you would automatically associate with Juana, whose earlier recordings and live approach have been a bit more laid-back on the electronic folk pastoral tip...yet she is really rocking out here and now on her current album material while retaining a kind of natural sylvan psilocybic edge (there is a glade somewhere)...<br /><br />Her new album "Un Dia" is certainly her best ever, the grooves dig in deep--the bass drum accents really hit you in the solar plexus, WHOMP!--as the songs wend their way down curious, exotic, and always unexpected byways, with Juana's childlike voice playfully out front chanting and caressing the melodies, which loop de loop flip-flop fly away an aquaplano...<br /><br />Certainly one of the best albums of 2008, with truly gorgeous packaging (especially the Argie edition which I ordered through Amazon, the cover and design on this is amazing)... check out some of her cool new tracks <a href="http://www.myspace,com/juanamolina">here</a>--they are au naturally mind-manifesting in the very best way...<br /><br />Some more back-story:<br /><br />A couple nights after I saw Juana play in NYC at Le Poisson Rouge, in the company of my friends the music writer Richard Gehr and his lovely wife (Jazz at Lincoln Center's Bill Bragin was there as well), I performed at the Highline Ballroom as part of the Rock-It Science Festival put together by my friend, best-selling NY Times author and McGill University professor Dan Levitin, whose book "This is Your Brain on Music" is a must-read if you have any kind of interest at all in the ineffable power of music to move you, mood-swing you, and mesmerize you (ineluctable modality of the audible...it may be the finest book of its kind, in the tradition of--though vastly different from--my friend Geoffrey O'Brien's book "Sonata for Jukebox: Pop Music, Memory, and the Imagined Life")...<br /><br />Another Rock-It Science organizer was Professor Joseph LeDoux, a distinguished professor and neurosurgeon whose group The Amygdaloids are something else again...also the musician and guitarist Tim Sommer, late of the great avant-pop ensemble Hugo Largo...the house band was composed of my old friend Lenny Kaye, who certainly needs no introduction, and featured both Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate and Peter Holsapple of the dB's on raving guitars (and what superb guitarists all three are!)...Holding down the drum chair was Steve's wife Linda Pittmon, who has to be one of the most muscular and in- the- pocket drummers I've ever seen...<br /><br />also on the bill performing was violinist/composer/neurologist Dave Soldier, with whom I'd performed at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkoUg4AF4dQ">Giorgio Gomelsky's 75th birthday party</a> the weekend before...also Dee Snider from Twisted Sister...and a host of other luminaries...<br /><br />I had been invited to perform solo at the festival as a special guest on the bill, and was given my own 20 minute set, originally to take place right before my pal Rufus Wainwright's performance...<br /><br />In any case, the organizers decided to switch the order at the last minute...<br /><br />and so I went on directly AFTER Rufus delivered his customary great set...<br /><br />and I have to say, despite Rufus being the natural headliner, I quite held my own with the crowd, and more (they didn't walk out...and in fact cheered me, loudly)...<br /><br />I began with a solo acoustic guitar version of Arthur Russell's anthemic "Let's Go Swimming", which I have been performing in nearly every show I've played solo or with my band since 1994 (I love introducing audiences to Arthur's music, he should be ALOT better known!)...<br /><br />I followed this with my original solo electric guitar instrumental <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsPpAitcX1c&feature=channel_page">"Rise Up to Be"</a>--the music I gave to Jeff Buckley in '91, which became the instrumental basis our song "Grace"...<br /><br />Dan Levitin, who is a great multi-instrumentalist as well as a terrific writer, professor and audio engineer (he worked on Blue Oyster Cult's albums with my old friend Sandy Pearlman) joined me on percussion--snare drum-conga and wind chimes-- for the extended electronic guitar coda to this composition...<br /><br />and I finished with an incendiary instrumental solo version of my song <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihi-MvB_XcA&feature=channel_page">"One Man's Meat"</a> (is another man's poisson), which David Johansen sang on my Gods and Monsters album "Coming Clean", and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrBeHpL_W4w&feature=channel_page">performed live with us</a> at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival a few years back...<br /><br />What can I say--a truly great night of all sorts of music and music-making...I really loved playing at this Rock-It Science Festival thingy!!<br /><br />(special thanks to Day-V for roadie-ing and for taking the photos from that night, which I posted in my last blog--check 'em out, they are <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/">up on my website</a> as well...and thanks again to Dan and Joe and Tim for organizing such a super-event)...<br /><br />Some good news re future gigs just coming over the wire--<br /><br />I am confirmed now to play with <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/golem/">"The Golem"</a> at the Malaga Film Festival in lovely Spain down on the Costa del Sol on June 26th...<br /><br />This occurs directly after my appearance on June 23rd and 24th at the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam performing at the Holland Festival with my new solo guitar score to accompany Abel "Napoleon" Gance's 1926 anti-war masterpiece <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%27accuse_(1919_film)">"J'Accuse"</a> live--this will be a collaboration with the young Dutch-Iranian composer/prodigy Reza Namavar and the Cameleon Ensemble led by Wilmaar Devisser...and I'm damn excited about it!<br /><br />also--<br /><br />I was just booked for a slew of European dates, with more on the way, at the end of November, along with my friend the great jazz/blues vocalist Dean Bowman...we will be performing as Chase the Devil, our spiritual roots duo project which I love playing live with him...we are midway through recording our new album with Steve Addabo at the controls...stay tuned...<br /><br />Meanwhile--check out some new Chase the Devil tracks <a href="http://www.myspace,com/wechasethedevil">here</a>...<br /><br />plus there a bunch of clips from our recent show at the landmark Eldridge Street Synagogue on the Lower East Sde up on YouTube up <a href="http://www.youtube.com/garylucas">here</a><br /><br />Lastly--<br /><br />despite my constant attempts to stay cheerful and positive, this has been a very sad time for me with the recent death of my father Murray Lucas on Passover. <br /><br />He was 86 and had been in ill health for some time. <br /><br />I got my chance to pay my respects to him last Monday afternoon at the memorial service held for him in the Reform Temple of Riverside California...Riverside is where he and my mother had retired 4 years ago after living most of their married lives (60 some years) in my hometown of Syracuse New York...<br /><br />Caroline and I flew down there on Sunday and returned to NYC on Tuesday, staying with my sister Laurie and her husband Ezra Greenhouse--both journalists working at the Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper--and also their son Max, a really gifted guitarist rocker who's now playing with a great band, Windows of the Soul...<br /><br />The service was packed with local friends of my Dad...he was a very easy-going man and had quite a natural charm about him, and thus made friends very easily, he was one of the nicest and kindest of men you could ever imagine..<br /><br />My first cousin Bob Goldman flew his entire family in his private plane down there from San Jose...<br /><br />Bob's father, my uncle the late David Goldman, was an amazing entrepreneur, a total ball of fire and electric energy--and a real inspiration to me in my life...I loved David, and worked for him in Taipei in the mid-70's after graduating from Yale...Quite the operator, David owned bowling alleys and pool halls in Rochester NY, promoted bigtime rock concerts featuring everyone from The Who and the Yardbirds to Black Sabbath...and eventually bought the Voit Corporation, who make most of America's basketballs and other sporting equipment...<br /><br />Bob has got alot of David's moxie, and i must say I have alot in common with Bobby in the family in terms of similar energy and maverick vision status...<br /><br />Bob is a very successful entrepeneur/inventor who invented digital downloading of music in the early part of this century, and he has 4 of the earliest patents registered with the US government in his name to prove it...<br /><br />He believed that his patents had been infringed in a big way when downloading for $$ first took off, and he took Microsoft to court--and eventually settled with them for an extremely hefty sum of money... <br /><br />He has just invented a new piece of medical technology that delivers specific medication directly on-site to the area of injury, as opposed to general infusion techniques that flood one's entire system with medication...Bravo, Bobby! He came down there with his lovely wife Janine and their two adorable girls...<br /><br />Ar rhe memorial ceremony, to my mother's delight I chose to play my solo acoustic arrangement of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnGidN1pnMI">"Our Love is Here to Stay"</a> by George Gershwin--my dad loved Broadway show-tunes, Tin Pan Alley songs, and standards--especially Gershwin's... and I think he really would have enjoyed hearing this song. <br /><br />I know that it mirrored exactly how everyone there felt about my father.<br /><br />It was a really beautiful moment--<br /><br />and if you listen closely to the audio track of the YouTube clip, you can hear me choking the words "Goodbye Dad" into the mic at the end...<br /><br />Woops--our little mini-Schnauzer Lulu is living up to her name right now (what a handful she is!)...<br /><br />Lulu, NYC, 4/13/09 | photo by Honey Twigg Aldrich<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://garylucas.com/www/blog/uploaded_images/lulu-710912.jpg"><img style="margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://garylucas.com/www/blog/uploaded_images/lulu-710908.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Have to dash...<br /><br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-77446914610520884742009-04-11T22:58:00.015-04:002009-04-16T08:36:47.766-04:00Easter Everywhere...was the title of the second album from the fabulous Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Roky Erickson's gang, and it came out on the crazed Texan International Artists label right around the same time as "The Who Sell Out" and The Beach Boys' "Smiley Smile", in September 1967...San Francisco's post-summer of love's "Death of Hippie" slide into hard drugs and creeping paranoia not-withstanding, the Elevators evinced a cheerful optimism in the face of the imminent crack-up of their front man (who was miraculously resurrected by his blood brother a couple years back and is regularly gigging again, catch the documentary <a href="http://www.rokyerickson.net/docu.html">"You're Gonna Miss Me"</a> as soon as you can, a revelation and a must-see about one of the seminal figures--and near acid-casualties--of rock...<br /><br />and it seems fitting and appropriate in this yearly confluence of Passover and Easter to pay obeisance to Easter the holiday's nurturing resurrection motif (Patti Smith herself has acknowledged the Elevators' influence, and there of course was her own "Easter" album)-- "come on roll away the stone"...<br /><br />me, I have a song on my "Bad Boys of the Arctic" album entitled "They Can't Believe He's Risen Again"...(believe it).<br /><br />This arose out of a found fragment of overheard actual diurnal dialogue, one of my favorite lyrical composition techniques (take what you have gathered by coincidence), occasion being the time me and my partner in crime Bill Moseley allowed an actual mad itinerant alcoholic poet to read at our weekly Things That Go Bump in the Night horror film society gathering at Yale in 1973, at his insistence (my impulse is usually charitable when someone importunes me to share a stage with them)...the guy announced he was going to read his poem entitled "Easter", and managed to get out the one line "They can't believe He's risen again!" before being hooted down repeatedly by an egregious massed battallion of bored Yalies...but he kept at it, doggedly, staring them all down in the face of mass insurrection ("I am the resurrection and the life")...<br /><br />I like that.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Backstage at the Rock-it Science Festival, Highline Ballroom NYC 3/3/09; left to right on couch: Peter Holsapple, Steve Wynn, Rufus Wainwright, Lenny Kaye, Gary Lucas; front row: members of The Amygdaloids l to r: Nina Galbraith Curley, Daniella Schiller, Joe LeDoux, Tyler Volk | photo by Ellen Zoe</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/rockit2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/rockit2_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary and his friend Rufus Wainwright backstage at the Rock-It Science Festival at the Highline Ballroom NYC 3/3/09 | photo by day-V</span><br /><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/rockitscienceIMG_0019.jpg" width="400"><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary drops some science on the crowd during his solo set at the Rock-It Science Festival NYC 3/3/09 | photo by day-V</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/rockitscienceIMG_0025.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/rockitscienceIMG_0025_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Had 2 great gigs in town recently...<br /><br />Played a rousing "Let's Go Swimming" with Ernie Brooks, Mustafa Ahmed and Joyce Bowden at a packed Tribute to the late great <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Russell_(cellist)">Arthur Russell</a> held at Le Poisson Rouge here last Saturday night...<br /><br /> Arthur was one of my earliest supporters as I was in turn a supporter of his genius (I hooked up his last record deal with Geoff Travis' Rough Trade Records on my honeymoon in 1985)...Arthur stood way the fuck up for me when I started to contemplate playing guitar fulltime for a living back in 1986, at a session I arranged for Rough Trade that pitted Arthur's crazy dancefloor genius with the young turk rapper, my protege at the time, Mark Sinclair (whom you may know today as Vin Diesel)...<br /><br />At that particular session Arthur made a very astute comment "You know Gary, you should be playing fulltime, as you are clearly happiest with a guitar in your hands"--both Arthur and Howard Thompson and Verna Gillis were the most encouraging and supportive of my friends at a time when nearly everyone else was convinced that I had totally gone off the rails to even consider such a seemingly suicidal career move at the ripe old age of thirty whatsit--<br /><br />Second great gig last week was at Michael Dorf's City Winery to usher in Passover last Monday, Mike has been holding these Downtown Seders since time immemorial (well, about 10 years now) and I have attended and/or performed in them (usually essaying the role of Elijah) for about as long a time...this time cast by Michael as the "Wise Child" (Lou Reed usually does this role, he was absent this year) I played solo my arrangement of Smetana's "The Moldau" from "Ma Vlast", which borrows liberally from the ancient Italian folk tune which is shared by/is the basis for "Ha Tikvah" (the Israeli national album)...later on I came back with Dean Bowman to perform as Chase the Devil our new song <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNnFCY8sg8I&feature=channel_page">"Nobody's House"</a>...<br /><br />A good week, wherein I was sought out and invited by the prestigious Jazz Cafe in London's Camden Town to perform there solo, headlining on Saturday May 16th with my friends The Dark Poets sitting in with me (check out our recent Some Bizarre album "Beyond the Pale--Gary Lucas Vs. The Dark Poets", available at the iTunes store if you can't locate the actual hard-goods cd (which sports some nifty art-work, well worth the hunt), and check out our <a href="http://www.myspace.com/garylucasvsthedarkpoetsalbum">MySpace site</a>...Some Bizarre major domo Stevo tells me the album is about to be re-distributed in the UK through Universal and will soon be made available in the US)...<br /><br />and I also this week confirmed my Gary Lucas & Gods and Monsters 20th anniversary show ("it was 20 years ago today!"--well, nearly...Giorgio Gomelsky has footage of our very first gig which was held in Prospect Park at the Welcome Back to Brooklyn Festival in July 2009, which I will post shortly on YouTube, a wonderful show wherein we blew out their PA on the second number) which is to be held on Thursday June 11th in NYC at the tres cool Blender Theater at Gramercy and 23rd Street, a great music venue with plush seats and balcony reminiscent of the old Fillmore East --joining me, Ernie Brooks, Billy Ficca, Jason Candler and Joe Hendel will be my very special guest, the incredible Alan Vega--and more surprises are planned, stay tuned...<br /><br />Lastly, I was commissioned by Emmy-award winning documentary filmmaker Slawomir Grunberg to score his latest documentary for PBS, which will premiere at the Jewish Museum here on May 10th, and I will start recording it this Wednesday...and also was just interviewed by the lovely Olivia Williams on her syndicated radio show The "O" Show...<br /><br />A good week yes...<br /><br />saddened unfortunately by the passing of my father on Passover at age 86 in Riverside California...he'd been ill for a long long time...<br /><br />Caroline and I are heading out to Riverside early tomorrow morning for a memorial ceremony with my mother, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew attending on Monday...<br /><br />What can I say, he was a wonderful man;...<br /><br />and you have my Dad to either thank or curse for the fact of me playing guitar today...<br /><br />as he single-handedly came to me when I was a clueless little boy at the age of 9, and said (pre-Beatles):<br /><br />"Gary--how about playing a musical instrument? How about the guitar??"<br /><br />I will miss you terribly, Dad...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">first known photo of Gary with guitar, age 10</span><br /><img src="http://photos2.flickr.com/1944581_ec45373db8_o.jpg" width="400"><br /><br />Easter Everywhere...<br /><br />Believe it.<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />Gary<br /><br />ps just came from a fantastic dinner at Kobma Thai with Israeli film director Amos Kollek, his lovely wife Osnat, Cineaste editor Richard Porton, and Caroline...Amos' controversial and thought-provoking film "Restless", which played the Israeli Film Festival here a few months ago, was one of the best films I managed to catch all year, and certainly Amos' best film to date, with stunning performances by veteran Israeli actor Moshe Ivgy and Israeli hearthrob Ran Danker (once linked romantically to my friend and collaborator Israeli Pop Idol winner Ninet Tayeb) as his son...sadly the film was not picked up for distribution in the US--I pray for a DVD release soon, as the film raises too many relevant issues in a coherent, intelligent and entertaining way, and should by no means be swept under the rug (especially a film that elicited the comment from one disgruntled viewer at the IFF: "This film is a disgrace to the state of Israel, and should not have been shown at this festival!" <br /><br /> I strongly disagree...)Gary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-13980833290418728662009-02-15T17:20:00.016-05:002009-02-17T08:02:13.333-05:00Herz are TrumpAlthough I thoroughly enjoyed my recent shows in Germany and Austria (special thanks to Erhard Hirt, Jurgen Waldner, Josef Gebetsroither, and Hans Oberlechner--and of course, Steffen Wilde of Subtone Concerts), it is really good to be back in New York now (I missed Caroline and our new dog!)...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Poster of Gary Lucas for his Voecklabruck, Austria show, 2/9/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/P1030718.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/P1030718_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Poster for Gary Lucas solo concert St. Johann, Austria, 2/7/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/P1030719.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/P1030719_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">click to enlarge</span><br /><br />A long travel day back last Sunday from the snowy Tirolean town of St. Johann high in the Austrian Alps, where I had played a solo concert on Saturday night plus performing with silent films to a very enthusiastic crowd, to Salzburg and then a flight to Frankfurt airport, where I ran by complete chance into my old friend Slawomir Grunberg, the award-winning documentary film maker, right at the gate to my flight to JFK (he was coming back to the States from Warsaw)...I scored Slawomir's film "Bed and Breakfast 9/11" which aired on PBS last year on that unhappy anniversary day, and also participated in and scored his film <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaL_uyEcaM8&feature=channel_page">"The Legacy of Jedwabne"</a>...I first met Slawomir in July 2001 in Poland on the occasion of the Polish Goverment's official apology ceremony on behalf of the surviving family members of the Jedwabne massacre (of which I am one...<a href="http://garylucas.com/www/grfx/LETTER_FROM_JEDWABNE.pdf">here</a> is an account of the background to and the actual event itself, something I will never ever forget)...<br /><br />I had a day's recovery on Monday, and then Tuesday played a performance of <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/surr/">"Sounds of the Surreal"</a> at the World Financial Center's Wintergarden Atrium, a magnificent public space downtown right across from Ground Zero...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary slays 'em with "Sounds of the Surreal" at the Wintergarden at the World Financial Center, NYC, 2/10/09<br />marksman pictured on screen is the painter Francis Picabia, from Rene Clair's "Entr'acte" (1924)</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/CIMG7113.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/CIMG7113_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Watch the birdie—Gary performs "Sounds of the Surreal", World Financial Center Wintergarden Atrium, NYC, 2/10/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/CIMG7112.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/CIMG7112_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary is filmed setting up for his "Sounds of the Surreal" show for a new documentary about Gary's work, World Financial Center, NYC, 2/10/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/CIMG7040.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/CIMG7040_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photos by Julia Crowe | click to enlarge</span><br /><br />I'd played there twice before, once in a tribute to my late lamented genius friend Arthur Russell shortly after his untimely death, in the company of Ernie Brooks, Joyce Bowden, Mustafa Ahmed and Peter Zummo (all friends and collaborators with Arthur), the other time as part of a tribute to Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" album organized by the NY Guitar Festival's David Spelman (a really good night, the Boss was so warm and engaging after the performance, also highly complimentary of my performance of his song "State Trooper" blush blush, which I had arranged as a solo instrumental piece, you can <a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=270273678">download it now from iTunes</a>--Bruce Springsteen is one of the friendliest and most genuine people I have ever encountered in this business)...anyway, it was a great night, the place was absolutely packed, and man were they LISTENING (and man did they applaud), I played Alberto Iglesias' theme from the film <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucía_y_el_sexo">"Sex and Lucia"</a> as a solo encore without benefit of a film going on behind me (I faced the crowd for this performance, playing to the film which appeared simultaneously on a video monitor in front of me and as a gigantic projection behind me) and you could hear a pin drop in the Atrium...re "Sex and Lucia", don't be fooled by the title, which makes it sound like a cheap porno, this is an excellent film--well worth checking out from Netflix (was first turned on to this film and its wonderful music by my friend former Cineaste editor Glenn Kenny, who requested I arrange the title theme for his wedding several years ago... and this music has remained in my repertoire ever since)...<br /><br />Old friends who made the journey downtown for my show included classical guitarist and now electric guitar-slinger <a href="http://www.myspace.com/juliacrowe">Julia Crowe</a>, who has a beautiful new album out now entitled "Smoke and Steel", the new music reviewer/writer Kurt Gottschalk, who edits/operates a cool experimental music webzine and online new music store at <a href="http://www.squidsear.com/ear/">The Squid's Ear</a>, also Richard and Roberta Berger and Steve Spitzer, three of my dearest NYC fans/new music supporters, and also--nice surprise!--my old friend Arma Andon, longtime music industry mover/shaker/insider (Arma was at the session when George Harrison recorded "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" with Eric Clapton, for instance, he is a treasure trove of amazing stories, he was VP of Columbia's marketing dept. for many years and is currently heading up Seaview Records with the amazing Karl Wallinger of World Party)...Doug Sloan, the film maker making a documentary about my work was there as well with crew taking it all in...<br /><br />And a splendid time was had by all, special thanks to Ed Haber and Irene Trudell for the excellent sound recording of the show they made, which will be broadcast in the near future on WNYC...and extra special thanks to John Schaefer for booking me into his series...John is one of my oldest supporters, the host of the long-running WNYC show "New Sounds", and a fantastic force for new music in NYC and the world at large--he's had me on his show in various configurations about 20 times, most recently live collaborating with UK Indian vocalist extraordinaire Najma Akhtar--and, well I was going to hold off till we got closer to the release date, but what the hey, this is as good a time as any to announce that Najma and I have recently signed to Harmonia Mundi's World Village label for the release of our album "Rishte", due out May 25th worldwide--you can preview a track from the album, "Naya Dhin" now up on my <a href="http://www.myspace.com/garylucas">myspace jukebox</a>...a damn good album if I do say so meself, kind of folk blues rock raga (we used 3 tabla players) and then some, with Najma's hypnotic and sensual voice weaving in and out of my guitars and soundscapes and casting its spell--watch out strange kin people!...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary with his new mini-Schnauzer Lulu, NYC, 1/28/09</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/Gary_and_Lulu.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/Gary_and_Lulu_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Lisa Baer | click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Lots of activity going on now, Caroline and I got a wonderful new puppy recently, a mini-Schnauzer named Lulu, and she is quite the handful, but utterly delightful--tearing around our apartment at breakneck speed (she doesn't want to stop playing, ever) and we just got back from "puppy-obedience school", a nice way to while away a lazy Sunday afternoon, except I have so much music now to prepare and rehearse for various upcoming shows, including 2 major film scoring commissions--one from the Film Society of Lincoln Center for the great Tod Browning crime thriller <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unholy_Three_(1925_film)">"The Unholy Three"</a> (1925) starring Lon Chaney, Victor McLaglen, and Harry Earles, the other from the Holland Festival for Abel Gance's 1919 anti-war masterpiece <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J'accuse_(1919_film)">"J'Accuse"</a>, which I am scoring in collaboration with the Dutch-Iranian composer Reza Namavar and an ensemble...<br /><br />How I got into scoring films is an interesting tale...was way way way into film as a wee lad, particularly horror and science fiction films, which you might have gathered :-)...in fact I used to collect the edited-down silent Castle Films 8mm versions of the Universal 30's and 40's great horror cycle and project them to my friends on the walls of our basement, first one I collected was "The Bride of Frankenstein" in fact (wherein comes the source of my band's name--the sequence when mad Ernest Thesiger toasts Colin Clive: "To a New World of Gods and Monsters!")...I used to stare at these images for hours, transfixed, I used to inhabit these films, and create my own musical soundtracks for them in my head...was only later on when I got older that I got to view the full sound versions of these films on tv and in revival houses, and heard the Franz Waxman/Hans Salter mittel-European scores for the first time, scores largely a pastiche of the classics (Richard Strauss, Wagner and Bruckner, particularly)...<br /><br />But my earliest experience composing actual music for films dates from the time I spent working while still in high school for the NY State Upstate Medical Center's documentary films unit--which I got accepted into by virtue of a celebrated stop-motion animated film I'd created about DNA for an Excel high school biology course...one of the documentaries this unit produced was "Aquatic Ecology", narrated and hosted by upstate New Yorker Rod Serling...<br /><br />Of course I had been a huge fan of "Twilight Zone"--whose <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTSX91J6UtE&NR=1">Marius Constant-penned hypnotic electric guitar-driven theme</a> was one of the first motifs I was inspired to master on guitar, along with <a href="http://www.montynorman.com/jamesbond/default.asp">Monty Norman's James Bond theme</a>...<br /><br />Anywho, I was asked to come up with a main title theme and background music for their "Aquatic Ecology" documentary, which I performed on my acoustic 12-string Swedish Klira guitar...I always seemed to have had a knack for improvising to film, maybe as a result of studying them so closely--a knack which has served me well over the years, as you can see from this clip from the Maysles Films' HBO documentary "Lalee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton", which I've <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xVyYjD34o">just put up on YouTube</a>... <br /><br />and I always get a kick out of the fact that my first venture into film music was on a Rod Serling-related project (though no sea monsters here, only the land monster, Man)... <br /><br />Also up on YouTube now is the new <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_Xa82ZysVw">Wild Rumpus video for our song "Rock the Joint"</a> which I mentioned in a previous blog, wonderfully hand-animated by Tabitha O'Connell who has worked on "Ren and Stimpy" among other cool animations (I have been really lucky this year to have had so many AMAZING female collaborators!! Once again in the film dept., special thanks to Jill A. Black, who did such a great on my <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkV6u0xgNww&feature=channel_page">"Obama" video</a> with Peter Stampfel)...<br /><br />And the hits just keep on coming :-)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=31777">First review out of the box</a> for the new Fast 'N Bulbous "WAXED OOP" album (out now at better stores everywhere) is an absolute rave, from All About Jazz magazine...<br /><br />and Moors Magazine from Holland just featured a really lovely <a href="http://www.moorsmagazine.com/muziek3/zbinden.html">review</a> of my new psychedelic improv album with Swiss guitar madman Gerald Zbinden, "Down the Rabbit Hole", which I devoted a whole blog or 2 to back in the day recording the album in Lausanne if you check my archive...<br /><br />Have to go practice now, some Bruckner, Wagner and Dvorak (not horror movie music, but actual pieces by these composers that I've arranged and transcribed, music I'm playing up at McGill University's School of Music in a couple weeks for their annual MusiMars Festival)...<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-21600291703375820342009-02-04T10:47:00.005-05:002009-02-04T18:48:08.706-05:00Wild Man BluesHere I be slaving over a hot keyboard at the Cafe Unterhaus in lovely Passau Germany, outside the gorgeous snowladen vista ´oer the beautiful blau Danube flowing under the 11th century fortress-castle visible also from the window of my room at the Hotel Wilder Mann (yep, an ancien deluxe hotel named for, uh, dunno...the wild man of Borneo, Yum Yum Eatemup? Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, who stayed here once? Other guests to have sampled the delights of this gravitas-laden gravy boat of a stately medieval manor, according to the photos ringing the löbby, have included Gorbachev, Helmut´s Schmidt und Kohl (maybe Helmut Newton as well?), Neil Armstrong, Yoko Ono (I don´t believe it...but there she is hanging on the wall pictured in floppy hat and shades, coming off the tour of the Passauer Glasmuseum, also in the Hotel proper)...anyhow, the Wild Man Hotel a splendid place to hang my hat for 2 days after playing a very very satisfying solo concert in Muenster on Sunday night (thank you Erhard Hirt)at the C.U.B.A....<br /><br />... and then a travel day from hell...no Deutsche-Bahnhof porter with luggage cart waiting in Köln to help with the transfer of my bags despite being reserved by my agent--hey it happens--nearly had a heart attack dragging my acoustic and electric guitars, monster-case of electronics, garment bags etc. down along and across the platform to hop the next train in the 5 minutes alotted before departure--couple that with broken cell phone, broken Nano, loud obnoxious Dutch businessman in first class sanctum sanctorum yammering into his cell phone between Frankfurt Flughafen and Nurnberg...oh well...<br /><br /> Two changes of train and seven hours traveling across sunny meadows and open skies of Germany and finally arrived in Passau at the German/Austrian border, to be picked up by Jurgen Waldner from the Kunst Museum Cafe where I am performing tonight, my first time in Passau (I have played about 60-70 different cities the length and breadth of Germany in the last 21 years, in various configurations--always wanted to play here, the scenery really caught my eye, passed through Passau on the way into Austria once to play in St. Georgen, an actual hamlet, literally standing at the crossroads, two or three buildings only huddled at a rural intersection so far out a train don´t go there, marking the spot where...Saint George slew the dragon? Performed in a huge barn-like building with stage back of a manorhouse, a well-paid gig as I recall, afterwards holed up in a tiny room in the manor round midnight with about 17 horse flies buzzing my kopf, went and got wet towel and faced off one on one with the very unwise flies...okay boys, it´s you or me...and St. Georgen-like, smote every one of the pestilential critters in a knock-down dragged-out fight to the death...and later slept the peace of the just)(very un-Schweitzer-like of me, I admit)...<br /><br />Me, I like this restless, peripatetic life...and I like playing this mix of high-low joints, from the funkiest of roadhouses (St. Georgen gig a literal barn-burner), to elegante, crystal-chandeliered concert halls (the Sin B Martinu venue in the Czech Republic remains one of my favorites, right up there with Royal Festival Hall in London...bring 'em on)...<br /><br />Off to soundcheck (Don Van Vliet once observed rather tartly, when I tried dragging him away from his tea at an English motorway hotel circa 1980 in order to get him in the van so we could make the next city in time for a soundcheck: "I don´t need my sound checked!")<br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-89288788275872160282009-01-10T10:24:00.017-05:002009-01-13T00:59:15.156-05:00Chime OnChilly scenes of winter (why is it so cold down here?)<br /><br />So cold...<br /><br />Sunny today defecting grey dank j. arthur rank New Yawk sounds its barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world announcing mo' bitter blues, economic downturns, joblessness, layoffs--an agenbite of inwhitman sampler of shiny wrapped chocolates which, having bitten deep therein, reveal themselves to be of the crunchy frog variety, steam blasts rising from subway grates fly ghost vapor trails like so many kites 'oer the ramparts we watched through the twilight's last dreaming...<br /><br />So--how's a body to keep warm??<br /><br />There's a signpost up ahead--pointing underground downtown saturday night towards a temporary alleviation of symptoms both anomic and s.a.d, one of those truly more-or-less secret NYC events that give one a temporary pause that refreshes, a 94th birthday tribute at Bowery Electric (dive bar with great grotto-like downstairs room on Bowery right off 2nd Street, directly across the street from the legendary soon to be moving to Chinatown-bound Downtown Music Gallery)--<a href="http://event.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.detail&eventID=482217.4764&hashcode=35ed8cd8-49c9-48ce-b715-44eeede29490">a festchrift for mythic angel-headed hipster/junkie saint Herbert Huncke</a> (rhymes with Funky-- butt cheek), a literary and in-the-field fleshly inspiration to Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso and co...who in their mid-50's Time Square crawls/trawls adopted Huncke as an Ur-specimen of Bohemian high-low life (this was the deepest part of their underworld)...<br /><br />Huncke's verbal and written dexterity comes well recommended, combining as it does the singular attention to site-specific unsavory (and otherwise) physical details of various high jinx, hustles and cons, not unakin to Burroughs' own voice (Huncke's yellow journal-ish jaundiced junkie perspective is seemingly the major inspiration for bunker-buster Bill's knowing cracked carny voice, a true man 'o the world weary, along lines first delineated by Genet, Celine, Melville etc., combined with the breathless epiphanic rush of the best Kerouac)...<br /><br /> I first encountered Huncke's writing browsing through Ann Charters' "The Portable Beat Reader" sometime during my high school days at the recommendation of my friend Mick Stern, hanging out as I did back in the day (not much real choice in the matter) with the beyond-the-fringe crowd of so-called "red diaper babies"--most of whose folks were former CP-member blacklisted academics/fellow travelers lucky enough to be holding a gig at Syracuse University--also various disaffected misfits, intellectuals, left-protest kids, music stoners...<br /><br />In fact, marijuana proved itself the greatest healing sacrament in bringing together the disparate warring high school tribes, on occasion--<br /><br />I remember one particular frat party I was dragged to by my guy Steve Shehadi (the Neil Cassady of our group, with whom I used to routinely cut classes)--a kegger and pot bacchanale during an absolute white-out of a Syracuse winter that had the besotted frat boys and girls, who regularly mocked and threatened me and my buddies for our longhair/general appearance, actually "getting down" with us--great frozen moment snapshot in the back of my mind of all of us a'tokin' and a'singin' and a' swingin' and a 'swayin' along to Neil Diamond's (gulp) "Holly Holy" coming over the top 40 radio in somebody's parents-away-on-holiday suburban track house front room, as we sailed off into the mystic)-- <br /><br />Yep, the chant of the weed--spliffs united, uniting, if only for a moment, pigs and repugnant ROTC guys and their sally sorority cheerleader followers, also their black fraternity counterparts known collectively as "The Soul Generation" up in the 'Cuse wayback in the 1960's..."Beep Beep, Bang Bang, Ungawah, BLACK POWER" was another chant we shared together then, us "no child left behind" jewish junior SDS kids and our black bredren and sistren, walking out together hand in hand on racist George Wallace speaking up at Syracuse University in the fall of '66...grass also uniting the jocks, hoods, the protractor-in-pocket nerds, the good the bad and the indifferent making up the student microcosm at Nottingham High School (a very public school I attended in the late 60's, one of America's first truly integrated schools, in word if not in actual thought and deed--ghetto kids from the inner-city being regularly bused there on a daily basis to attend classes..."Nottingham, Nottingham, ever so true"...Julian Cope told me the original name for the UK midlands city of Nottingham, where Robin of Locksley once hung his be-plumed hat, also where The Magic Band struck gold a couple times a few years/tours ago, was actually--Snottingham! (yep)... but I digress...marijuana was a great social leveller back in the day, for sure (silly, isn't it--"I get high/you get high/let's be friends!")<br /><br />A very uneasy truce hung like a pall over the Nottingham cafeteria when all the various student body factions would assemble during the lunch period to rub shoulders in the line and eyeball each other, each clique hugging the shoals of their own turf/tables to be turned, waiting for that certain flash point that might ignite a rebellious spark of--boredom, most likely--and actually tip the scales over into real violence, a commodity oft on-hand during these forged-in-the-crucible of whatsis years, we'd had periodic tastes of it, actual in yr face mini-race riots, one of which actually made Walter Cronkite and the CBS Evening News in '68 the day our principal was decked by a flying chair hurled at his head by an unknown assailant whilst trying to cool down a cafeteria melee-in-the-making (someone insulted somebody's girl at a dance Montague and Capulet style and...you know the story)...<br /><br />So what's all this haveta do with Huncke? <br /><br />Well, when I read him back in the day, his words bestirred me very much like Trocchi's, like Mailer's, like Dostoevsky's, like Jan Cremer's, as being a close simulacrum to the truth, to the actual "way things were" out there in the big world beyond my little town (more accurately, my medium-sized city)...<br /><br />So last Friday night Danny Fields, Caroline and I traipsed over from the West Village after drinks at Danny's (what a fabulous apartment, right around the block from us in the West Village, encrusted top to bottom with books, photos, artifacts and sacred relics of Danny's career as a&r badboy/cultural catalyst/pot stirrer/sicknurse to a deaf dumb and blind kid-infested music biz), all set, all set to go to this great huncke huncke hunk 'o burnin' love for Herbert H....<br /><br />And it was good brothers, and it was good...downtown poet Edgar Oliver (one of Steve Paul's "puppet boys" with whom I duetted--well, shared a cathode ray or two, courtesy Edgar's hand-puppet laughing stalk awhile back on Steve's great <a href="http://www.downtowntv.com/">downtowntv.com</a>, delivered a typically terse and florid Huncke story set in a New Orleans brothel (first rays of the new rising son) in tones of purest dovetonsils/aetherized patient on a gurney...Thurston Moore delivered a very forceful reading of another HH story that quoted the bo-Huncke's desire for ecstatic "peace, peace, peace" (shantih shantih shantih heads all reading the tea leaves), Tatum O'Neal trotted out some real life first person lowereastside dope copping stories, amiable indie director Abel Ferrara (his "Ms. 45" with the radiant Zoe Tamerlis a particular favorite) blissfully blessed everyone on the way out with some Huncke Dory sherry (and when oh when is his "Go Go Tales" film of a couple years ago with Willem Dafoe and seductive Asia Argento going to get a general release anywho?)... Patti Smith did an exquisite rendition of "My Blakean Year" accompanying herself on acoustic guitar...and it was a beautiful night, a magical NYC event...not too well publicized at all,either...proving once again, that love hides in mysterious places (I sing the Bowery electric)...<br /><br />Mysterious, yet relatively unknown places--<br /><br />such as the <a href="http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UES/UES024.htm">Bohemian National Hall</a>, a magnificent newly renovated building on the upper eastside where on Friday November 7th, courtesy director Marcel Sauer, Czech underground poet Pavel Zaichek and I made with the word and the music to an audience of mainly Czech die-hard art lovers who were there for the grand opening and had heard about it strictly through the Fernet and Becherovka-vine (which they serve their, mmmm)--the Czech Cultural Association getting the word out being so important in this day of information overload...<br /><br />Mysterious spaces-- like the New York Public Library on 42nd Street and 5th's Celeste Bartos Forum, a fantastic vaulted sanctum sanctorum of high modernism with the comfortable and refined trappings of a civilized old-fashioned salon (they serve wine, cheese and salami there f'rinstance) that is the epicenter for an ongoing literary and cultural renaissance feast as set by the library's brilliant young Director of Public Programs Paul Holdengraber, who together with the New York Review of Books' Robert B. Silvers curated an extremely fascinating lecture series this fall, Live at the NYPL, is keeping the flame of spirited intellectual discourse alive and burning in a most elegant manner...Caroline and I were privileged to hear a couple weeks ago on Dec. 5th one of the UK's most incandescent literary lights, the formidable <a href="http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth257">Zadie Smith</a> ("White Teeth" is one of Caroline's favorite books), who delivered a most provocative lecture to a packed house entitled "Speaking in Tongues".<br /><br />Four nights later on Tuesday Dec. 9th Paul played host to the great <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Barenboim">Daniel Barenboim</a>, who was in town to play concerts at both the Met and Carnegie Hall, and also to deliver an open-ended conversation interview at the NYPL...Barenboim seemed a bit out of sorts with both the audience and also with the ebullient Paul, who is naturally one of the wittiest, most pithy interlocutors I've ever witnessed in action, but whose probing and genial questions here were rather shunted aside by Barenboim, who seemed to be off on his own vector all night, at the end Paul was finally abl to draw him out as bit by playing a snatch of an unidentified tango recording, which I recognized as a recording by the great Argentinean singer/idol Carlos Gardel--after it played, Barenboim noticeably misted over and seemed to relax for a moment, noting that hearing this tango had brought back memories of his own childhood in Buenos Aires, that he had idolized Gardel in his youth, and that the actual hat he had brought with him that night l(eft behind in his dressing room) was a faithful replica of Gardel's famous fedora...but that's as far as he went with it, he seemed otherwise distinctively uncomfortable with any music references other than classical...a well-meaning young fan who tried to tease him out about his thoughts on contemporary music, specifically jazz, was rebuffed as unworthy of an answer, on the grounds that as he really didn't know anything about jazz or popular music, why was the poor fellow asking him to comment on it? The art critic Robert Hughes, who was sitting in the front row, did manage to get a decent response to his question, but it was tough-sledding for most of the questioners, as it was for Paul and Daniel Barenboim...<br /><br />Oh well...<br /><br />I still quite like and look to the guy, cranky though he might have been that night, not only as an amazing pianist and conductor but also for all that he's tried to do to build bridges in the world between people through music, Bernstein-like...<br /><br />also for his early marriage to the late lamented Jacqueline Du Pré, who was once cited by Jeff Beck in "Hit Parader" in the late 60's for the rather elegant way she carried on in concert after breaking a string on her cello :-)<br /><br />When the lecture was over, I bought a copy of one Barenboim's books, duly stood with Caroline in the autograph line, and when it was my turn, said to the very visibly distracted and impatient maestro:<br /><br /> "Mr. Barenboim, I just wanted to say that you are a hero of mine, for trying to bring Jews and Palestinians together through music..."<br /><br />He looked up, smiled a hundred watt smile (not too much in evidence hitherto that night), and said:<br /><br /> "Thank you!"<br /><br />Next...<br /><br />If you're in town, please seek out the NYPL and check out Paul Holdengraber's must-attend ongoing lecture series--it is one of the best things going aboveground in NYC... <br /><br />Meanwhile: there is tons 'o fun going forward (one way song): <br /><br />my album of psychedelic guitar improvisations with Swiss avant-guitarist Gerald Zbinden which I described recording in Geneva in a very very early blog entry, is now out as a hard goods CD which you can <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/www/merch/">purchase from my website</a>, check out <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/www/rvw/LUCAS_ZBINDEN_LIBERTE.jpg">this review</a> from Swiss newspaper La Liberté...<br /><br />Also check out a <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/www/rvw/mojo-motown.jpg">new interview</a> I did with former ZigZag editor Kris Needs in the new MOJO magazine, all about my favorite Motown song.<br /><br />The latest issue of Tim Lucas' excellent Video Watchdog magazine <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/www/rvw/vid_watch.jpg">contains a review</a> of my website-only available DVD of my "Sounds of the Surreal/Monsters from the Id" project, which you can purchase <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/www/merch/merchMAIN.shtml#DVDS">here</a>.<br /><br />And lastly, I was quite honored to be interviewed last summer by Yaron Ben-Ami for leadel.net--the podcast of which is now up on the web, check it out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--griLSZEoI">here on YouTube</a>.<br /><br />Chime on...<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br />GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-55114885767752540542008-11-30T21:06:00.049-05:002009-01-01T13:32:37.364-05:00Death Cab for Forry (Black and Tan Fantasy, for FJA)Sad sad news today on the death of <a href="http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1864854,00.html?imw=Y">Forrest J. Ackerman</a>, requiescat in pace...<br /><br /><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 264px; height: 350px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/FamousMonsters14.jpg" border="0">Variously described in the obits doing the rounds as either the ultimate Fanboy, or alternately, the Grand Old Man of Sci-Fi, (ageless in other words- wotta guy!), manchild in the forbidden zone Ackerman's modern Promethean energy as devil's advocate for the darkside is legendary, his acolytes legion, his lurid spawn ranging from <a href="http://www.misfits.com/">The Misfits</a>, who appropriated the typography of the Famous Monsters logo for their own insidious ends, to the endless noxious celluloid manifestations of the latest in le horreur vacui (truly) on the order of "Saw", "Hostel", "Cleaver" (just kidding)-- <br /><br />Forry's mission, as he decided to accept it (at a very tender age):<br /><br />To promote promulgate hucksterize and lay bare for all to see the whole history of the justly celebrated and unfairly unsung literary and cinematic phantasms that float "between two worlds"-- in the realms of purest imagination in other words-- to make them manifest and writ large upon the land...<br /><br />Forrest J. Ackerman! (I have a distant German relative with same surname come to think of it)-- possessor, Montresor, of a very late-19th century romantic weltanschaung fixated on the diabolic and the outre, a consciousness forged in the crucible of whatsis (ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, boy)--<br /><br />Which eventually, under his benign editorship, threw up (heh heh) the seminal 60's Warren Publications "Famous Monsters of Filmland", "Spacemen", "Vampirella", "Screen Thrills Illustrated", "Monster World"--<br /><br /><img src="http://rbowser.tripod.com/metropolis/spacemen.jpg" align="left" width="200" border="0" hspace="5"><img src="http://www.creaturescape.com/unimonster/othermags/vampirella1.jpg" align="left" width="200" border="0" hspace="5"><img src="http://www.hembeck.com/Images/FredSez/BeatlesScreenThrillsIllustrated.jpg" align="left" width="200" border="0" hspace="5"><img src="http://www.genusx.com/images/monster_world.jpg" align="left" width="200" border="0" hspace="5"><br /><br />All of which reared their ugly and magnificent Gorgo-like mugs (that hideous strength) just a'beggin' you to pluck them hot off the rack in drugstores, barber shops, supermarkets and newstands all over America in the early 60's, to take them home, and-- well, what? <br /><br />Pre-masturbation, sublimatory fanboy fantasy fodder (flight from eros into death), best fit to read under the covers with a flashlight, with the lights out (lights out, everyone)...<br /><br />Necrological necrophiliac pulp trash but of course... <br /><br />But pulp trash of the highest, most subversive order, in the glorious tradition of EC Publications--<br /><br />Trash that fired the imaginations of millions of impressionable American adolescents (the sturdy as well as the sickly), among them quite a few nascent artistes, including yrs truly, who cut my baby incisors on Forry's magazines, eagerly ingesting at the very least 10,000 mics of the Ackermonster's enthusiasm for the Other (in fact, I first saw a still from "The Golem" in Famous Monsters, thrilling me to the very marrow, combining as it did my twin obsessions at the time with both the kabbalistic folk tales of my wayward Jewish youth, and also my budding passion for horror, fantasy and science fiction films and literature)...<br /><br />Forry made an appearance in Manhattan in the mid-80's auctioning off a chunk of his legendary collection of horror and sci-fi film artifacts/props--including an actual False Maria robot from "Metropolis"-- at the Puck Building here... but according to former "New Worlds" (UK) editor British expat/sci-fi author Charles Platt with whom I attended this most likely Wendayne Wahrman-mandated fire sale, said auction consisted mainly of seconds from FJA's vast golden hoard (quite naturally Forry was holding onto the good stuff)...<br /><br />Now he's swooped the scene...will be missed...another force 'o nature g-g-g gone...<br /><br />If you do get the chance to revisit the very early FM's (hopefully the full archives of which will eventually be issued on dvd ala "Mad") you will notice from the getgo a very high level of scholarship on the page (he knew his stuff)--lots of fascinating historical erudition/tidbits dusted off and trotted out--<br /><br /><img src="http://www.filmbuffonline.com/Features/FeaturesImages/Kinetogram.jpg" align="left" width="250" border="0" hspace="5">Not to mention many arresting photos on display each month spanning the silent era (the 1910 playbill pic of Edison's "Frankenstein"--see it to the left--scared the bejesus out of me/gave me literal nightmares), right up to (at least when I started reading it) the age of Bava, Hammer and AIP...also, the mag sported enlightened for the day multi-culti (very appropriate appellation here) big tent-like coverage of Mexican horror phenoms "The Baron of Terror" (a/k/a The Brainiac), the wrestling-horror Santos films, and later on, obeisance paid to the fabulous Jose Mojica Marins (<a href="http://www.mondo-digital.com/coffinjoe.html">Coffin Joe</a>) and his Sao-Paulo slum-based "cinema from the mouth of garbage" (rocket from the tombs)-- imparting in every issue to those who were paying attention a vast Olaf Stapledon-like overview of the entire phantasmagorical film universe/continuum, in amongst the quips and puns and neologisms that were part and parcel of Forry's avuncular editorial persona ('n wot's wrong wid dat?)...<br /><br />Around issue 25 however, under orders from Jim Warren apparently to dumb down or else wither and die (entropic heat-death of the universe--or at least, of the popular magazine), the quality of the articles took a drastic turn for the worse/swan-dive into the truly inane-- and then you really would maybe only scan through a copy very very hurriedly, very occasionally, for a glimpse of some fresh meat and image gristle, Forry's text rendered null/beside the point/farblonjet in extremis...<br /><br />However, happy to say, in the hands of folks like Tim Lucas and his fine "Video Watchdog", the editors of "FilmFax" magazine, filmcrit popcult folks Dave Kehr, Glenn Kenny, VA Musetto, Lucy Chase Williams, Kent Jones, Geoffrey O'Brien, Michael Atkinson, Jim Hoberman (and it goes without saying, Richard Porton), the precocious scholarly approach still prevails and flourishes in examining the work of the cinematic old devils (I mean masters) (master master this is recorded through a fly's eye)...<br /><br />As for the new masters-- well, l'esprit du les Monstres Fameuse, l'odeur du '60's transgressive modernism, that whiff of the fine fetid air of the Okefenokee Swamp mixed with the requisite Duco cement fumes needed to glue together 10 <a href="http://www.thegalleryofmonstertoys.com/60swing/60smainpage.html">Aurora Universal Monster model kits</a> (courtesy Captain Company, naturally ) still emanates occasionally in the various objets d'arts/manifestations of Drew Friedman, the Coen Brothers, Johnny Depp, Nick Cave, Mike Edison, Jon Spencer, Nick Tosches, George Romero, Genesis P. Orridge, Marie Losier, Guy Maddin, Alan Vega, Lars Von Trier, The Legendary Tiger Man, Willem Dafoe, Chan-Wook Park, Bill Moseley, Carlos Reygadas, John Waters, the Dark Poets, Zorn, Paul Lazar, Robert Rodriguez, Timur Bekmabetov, <a href="http://northforksound.blogspot.com/">Howard Thompson's North Fork Sound</a>, Black Fortress of Opium, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Werner Herzog, Asia Argento, Stereolab, Rey Trueno, Sonic Youth, Mike and George Kuchar, Dead Combo, David Lynch, Udo Keir, Louise Arnold, Michael Haneke, Amorphous Androgynous, Terry Gilliam, Bong Joon-Hoo, Diamanda Galas (what a motley crew!), and uh, gee, I dunno, I'm leaving a couple folks outa here I'm sure (SORRY!)...<br /><br />And, most recently--<br /><br /><img src="http://blog.jaman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/lettherightoneinpic.jpg" align="left" width="250" border="0" hspace="5">"Låt Den Rätte Komma In" (Let the Right One In)--<br /><br />ultra-astonishing Swedish vampire film directed by Tomas Alfredsson, starring the lissome Lina Leandersson--<br /><br />easily the best horror film I have seen since, oh, Géla Babluani's "13 Tzameti" (not really a horror film per se, but what the hey)<br /><br />see 'em both asap...<br /><br />(and I just heard that both are going to be remade in English...oy)<br /><br />Be afraid, be very afraid<br /><br />(Brothers and sisters-- I don't know what this world is coming to!)<br /><br />and I say all of the above without the least trace of irony...<br /><br />you ain't no punk, you punk<br />you wanna talk about the real junk?<br />if i ever slip, i'll be banned<br />'cause i'm your garbageman<br />well you can't dig me<br />you can't dig nothin'<br />do you want the real thing<br />or are you just talkin'? <br />do you understand? <br />i'm your garbageman<br />yeah, somethin' from the garage<br />and down the driveway<br />now get outta your mind<br />and get outta my way<br />now do you understand?<br />do you understand? <br />louie, louie, louie, lou-i <br />the bird's the word<br />and do you know why? <br />you gotta beat it with a stick<br />you gotta beat it 'til it's thick<br />you gotta live until you're dead<br />you gotta rock 'til you see red<br />now do you understand? <br />do you understand? <br />i'm a garbageman<br />aw, jump on and ride<br />yeah it's just what you need<br />when you're down in the dumps<br />one half hillbilly <br />and one half punk<br />big long legs<br />and one big mouth<br />the hottest thing from the north<br />to come out of the south<br />do you understand? <br />do you understand?<br />woo, i can't lose with the stuff i use<br />and you don't choose<br />no substitutes<br />so stick out your can<br />'cause i'm your garbageman<br />all right, <br />hop off<br /><br />--The Cramps, "Garbageman"<br /><br />"Goodbye old man, good bye..."<br /><br />xxLove<br /><br />Gary<br /><br />PS--Gods and Monsters ripped it up Dec. 3rd at Cakeshop on Ludlow Street in the heart of the Lower East Side, with special guests Dean Bowman on vocals and Mike Edison on theremin, below some pictures from the gig taken by legendary photog Clayton Patterson, the dude who captured the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxUZSIf5yjQ">video footage of the 1979 Tompkins Square Park police riot</a>...Clayton wrote on his email containing the pics "Loved the show"...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gods and Monsters rip it up at Cakeshop, NYC, 12/3/08 | photos by Clayton Patterson</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9401.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9401_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><a href="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9408.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9408_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><a href="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9422.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9422_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><a href="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9427.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9427_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><a href="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9429.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9429_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><a href="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9457.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9457_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><a href="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9503.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9503_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><a href="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9505.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9505_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><a href="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9524.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/cake_IMG_9524_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">click to enlarge</span><br /><br />PSS--More recaps/updates of the last month or so also coming soon, been frightfully busy (wahhhhh), that big announcement promised in the last posting will haveta wait for its proper moment of gravitas...<br /><br />PSSt--my friend <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soo_Catwoman">Soo Catwoman</a>,original punkette/Sex Pistols mascot, is selling a variety of her custom t-shirts, some bearing her unforgettable visage, on ebay <a href="http://shop.ebay.co.uk/items/?_nkw=soo+catwoman&_sacat=0&_fromfsb=&_trksid=m270. l1313&_odkw=catwomans-kitten&_osacat=0">here</a> and also through her <a href="http://www.myspace.com/soocatwoman">MySpace site</a>. <br /><br />Check 'em out, they make lovely holiday gifts, and come highly recommended by this here poster boy:<br /><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/catwoman.jpg" align="left" width="270" border="0">Gary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-10958230408430913422008-11-05T10:18:00.017-05:002008-12-02T11:47:43.405-05:00O BAM A LAM!!!WOAHHHHHH OBAMA--BAM A LAM!!!<br /><br />Gang was over last night (Pakistani pistol Shaista Husain and Gus Palakas, Cineaste editor Richard Porton) getting down in serious party-hearty mode, feasting on goodies from Citarella (smoked Scotch salmon, sesame chicken, mango mousse) , sipping Ombra Proseco and breathing deep of the, uh, heady whiff of victory in the air as we celebrated the most uplifiting event of the new century...initial nervous jitters as McCain took the first few states gave way to relaxed and expansive mass jubilation as the inexorable climb of the electoral college votes in Obama's favor made it official by 11pm, and we heard the delighted shrieks and shouts out on the cobblestoned streets of ye olde West Village and environs...what can I say?? I have never felt so happy about an election, for the sake not only of this fair land but for the hopes and dreams of the whole wide world...<br /><br />The last few weeks have gone by in a whirl, backtracking a minute I just want to say that sitting in on Mike Edison's " Literary Mayhem Event" at the Spiegelworld down at the South Street Seaport on Oct. 16th was extra-nice, extra-textured...Mike is an alte/neu big/little soul rebel out and about on the New York boho music 'n word scene with a new book just out, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Have-Fun-Everywhere-Wrestling-Notorious/dp/086547964X">"I Have Fun Everywhere I Go"</a>, a devilish double-donged dip into his nefarious activities as a former editor and publisher of "Screw" and "High Times" , adventures as hard-core punk rock drummer stalwart with Sharkey's Machine and the Raunch Hands to name a few, and so forth, Mike is a genuwine good guy/nice Jewish boy with a big heart and yen for the transgressive...<br /><br />Occasion was <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2008/10/fall-in.html">a set by his Rocket Train Delta Science Arkestra</a> which featured readings from fetching Rachel Shukert and Amanda Stern that skirted the pornographic (yeah!) and literary bad-boy-man-about-town <a href="http://www.jonathanames.com">Jonathan Ames</a>, who has a great new book out and then some--I really loved playing with these guys, especially as the Rocket Train Delta Science Arkestra featured supercool Jon Spencer on geetar (what a great guy and amazing fretboard stylist--loved his Blues Explosion when I caught them live at the Paradiso in Amsterdam couple years ago..Jon's currently working with Matt Verta-Ray in psychotic rockabilly combo <a href="http://www.myspace.com/heavytrash">Heavy Trash</a>...plus he's about to reform Boss Hog with his gal Cristina to play Barry Hogan's All Tomorrow's Parties festival soon)...Jon and I traded some mucho combustible licks ala Beck and Page circa "Stroll On"...and the lovely Hollis Queens on drums and Dean Rispler made a cool, solid rhythm section, if only to bolster the high energy grunt of Mike Edison on keys and theremin and the almighty Word...and the full house lapped it up...<br /><br />Couple nights later on Wed, Oct. 22nd Mike sat in on theremin with Gods and Monsters when we played a CMJ show out in Williamsburg at Public Assembly (formerly Galapagos, where I was on a bill with Jonathan Ames many years ago playing one of my 30's Chinese pop arrangement of Chow Hsuan's "Please Allow Me to Look at You Again" from my temporarily disappeared album <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/epk/">"The Edge of Heaven"</a> while Paul Lazar danced like Ray Bolger crossed with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadakichi_Hartmann">Sadakichi Hartmann</a>), special thanks to Michelle Cable at Panache Bookings for hooking us up, it was quite an incendiary gig, and the next day Jason Candler and I played at the Knit as a duo for a CMJ party...<br /><br />and then I was off to Madrid, arriving Sunday Oct. 25th, and headed straight to the Prado to eyeball my favorite Goya, Rubens, and Velasquez paintings, it was a lush warm Indian summer's day and the park and Botanical Gardens next to the Museum beckoned, as did the famous stand-up cafeteria across the street El Brillante, which boasts the <a href="http://umamimart.blogspot.com/2008/02/mangiamo-2007-el-brillante.html">word's greatest bocadillo de calamares</a>, which I scarfed down with salsa rosa--yummm...a traditional treat every time I hit the Prado...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">The Rocket Train Delta Science Arkestra at Spiegelworld, NYC, 10/16/08—l to r: Dean Rispler, Mike Edison, Hollis Queens, Jon Spencer, Michael Chandler, and Gary | click to enlarge</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/images/edison-arkestra.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/images/edison-arkestra_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary Lucas Plays "The Golem", Valladolid Film Festival, Valladolid, Spain, 10/27/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/spain1a.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/spain1a_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><a href="/www/pict/image/spain2a.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/spain2a_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Rey Trueno, Bruno Galindo, and Gary Lucas, Valladolid Film Festival, Valladolid, Spain, 10/27/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/spain3a.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/spain3a_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photos by Miguel Vallinas Prieto | click to enlarge</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">From the 53rd International Valladolid Film Festival Programme Book | click to enlarge</span><br /><a href="/www/grfx/spain_program.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/grfx/spain_program_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><br />Next day, I hooked up with my guy the estimable Spanish spoken-word artist and Madrid native Bruno Galindo and his pal musician and label owner Rey Trueno who had flown in from Mexico, and together with journalist and artistic maven Hector Marquez and his lovely gal Eliezer took the train to Valladolid, a medieval city about an hour from Madrid, the occasion was the <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/www/grfx/vallad.jpg">53rd International Valladolid Film Festival</a> where I was booked to play "The Golem" in the Teatro Cervantes--and what a night it was (although sad to say I had to miss my gal Yael Naim's show in NYC that night, ya can't be in two places at once, unless we're talking hearts), I was scheduled to go on at midnight but they held the show till 12:30am, and 5 minutes before showtime despite the drizzle and fog outside a couple hundred very cool folks appeared suddenly as if out of nowhere--and I had one of the greatest rides of my life with the film, I kid you not, which left me drained but very very happy, and the next day I got up early and did an interview for National Public Radio Spain in the hotel restaurant, and <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/www/rvw/norte.jpg">another interview</a> I'd done the afternoon before with a very sweet female journalist in the national Spanish newspaper El Norte de Castilla was out on the stands already...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">They Can't Believe He's Risen Again—Gary Lucas Plays "The Golem", Valladolid Film Festival, Valladolid, Spain, 10/27/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/spain4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/spain4_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Battle in Heaven—Gary Lucas Plays "The Golem", Valladolid Film Festival, Valladolid, Spain, 10/27/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/spain5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/spain5_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">The Golem Walks Among Us—Gary Lucas Plays "The Golem", Valladolid Film Festival, Valladolid, Spain, 10/27/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/spain6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/spain6_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary Lucas Plays "The Golem", Valladolid Film Festival, Valladolid, Spain, 10/27/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/spain7.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/spain7_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary Lucas and Bruno Galindo, 53rd International Valladolid Film Festival, Spain, 10/27/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/gl_galindo" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/gl_galindo_75" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photos by Hector Marquez | click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Thanks so much to Bruno and Hector for hooking it all up, I adore playing in Spain each and every time--only regret was I was unable to see the performance of my old friend <a href="http://www.myspace.com/juanamolina">Juana Molina</a>, who was on tour in Spain at the time but was playing in a different city each night I was there--Juana is the beautiful and very very gifted singer/guitarist/electronica enchantress from Buenos Aires who can really conjure up incandescent atmospheres live and on disc--check out her cool new album "Un Dia" (all of her albums are seriously worthy of your attention)...Bruno saw Juana's show in Madrid the night I left to come back to NYC and said she and her band were incredible...<br /><br />me, I came back to play a great gig with Dean Bowman here Thursday night at the Bowery Poetry Club with our new spiritual roots project Chase the Devil, in fact one fan had journeyed all the way from Chicago to see us perform! Check out our new MySpace site <a href="http://www.myspace.com/wechasethedevil">here</a>...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Chase the Devil (Gary and Dean Bowman) bring their spiritual roots music to the Bowery Poetry Club NYC, 10/30/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/images/chase_the_devil1008.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/images/chase_the_devil1008_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photo by Bertil Lundblad | click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Also seriously worthy of your attention is the latest album from erotic torch-singer/songwriter/nu-jazz icon Vanessa Daou, "Joe Sent Me", which is available right now only through her <a href="http://www.vanessadaou.com/">website</a>--I have followed Vanessa's music avidly over the years, and this album is her best to date, I've been walking the streets in a trance listening to it over and over on my iPod since I got a copy--although their music is apples and oranges, like Juana Molina, Vanessa Daou really knows how to create intimate moods and atmospheres like a waking dream...check out her slinky groove on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqD1IFuDQ-c">"Near the Black Forest"</a>.<br /><br />Speaking of grooves, me and DJ Cosmo, my partner in our avant-dance duo Wild Rumpus, have a new vinyl 12 inch, "Rock the Joint", about to drop Nov. 24th on her UK-based Bitches Brew label--this is our third single--our last one "Purple Somersault" was a iTunes UK Best of the Week download last summer--and it features the UK Human Beatbox Champion Beardyman on vocals--the advance press has been superb, check out a rave review from dance magnates' DMCUpdate.com <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/www/rvw/DMCU_joint.pdf">here</a> and there are more rave reviews, photos and info up on our page <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/wildr/">here</a>...you can hear "Rock the Joint" now on the jukebox at our Wild Rumpus MySpace site <a href="http://myspace.com/wildrumpusmusic">here</a>.<br /><br />Reasons to be Cheerful: Been a good week all around in fact--along with the incredible Obama-Ramalama, legendary producer Phil Ramone (Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, et al) selected moi (blush blush) as one of his top recommended artists in his latest <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-ramone-and-danielle-evin/dog-ears-music-volume-for_b_137544.html">Huffington Post blog</a>.<br /><br />and--<br /><br />I have some really really exciting news about the status of a long-time-coming collaboration very near and dear to my heart, which I will share with y'all soon...<br /><br />(Good things are worth waiting for!)<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />Gary<br /><br />PS--If you are out and about this weekend in NYC, please come on Up to the magnificent, newly restored Bohemian National Home at 321 East 73rd (the center for Czech cultural life in the 20's <a href="http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UES/UES024.htm">here</a>) for a Bohemian Double-Header Saturday and Monday at 7pm, both nights featuring yrs truly, literally Bohemian by birth on my father's side (the family name was originally Lichtenstein)...<br /><br />First up will be a close encounter with legendary Czech underground poet Pavel Zajicek, leader of one of the darkest and best European avant-rock ensembles ever, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dg307">DG 307</a>....<br /><br />I first met Pavel at Giorgio Gomelsky's Tribute to the Plastic People of the Universe held at the Kitchen in the fall of 1988, he <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DG_307_(band)">was associated with their bass player/founder Milan Hlavsa</a> in the early days before the PPU were founded, and in fact served prison time like them under the former Soviet-backed regime for his dissident music-making...Pavel and I have been pals for a long time, I jammed with DG 307 in the high hills outside Prague at a midnight bacchanale in the late 90's... he is an intense and charismatic presence onstage and off--and this promises to be quite a night of fierce poetry and music (his latest book of poetry is entitled "Love is a Midnight Scream from Hell"-- yeah!), an evening that should go down in the annals of L'Internationale Hallucinex (plus it's free!)...<br /><br />Then on Monday I'm back at the BNH performing with <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/golem/">"The Golem"</a>, my first performance with the film in NYC in almost 2 years...hot off the heels of my appearance with the film at the Valladolid Film Festival in Spain last week, I can't wait to tackle the Big Fella on his home Boho turf (they say the Golem is slumbering in the attic of the Bohemian National Hall, waiting to be activated...I promise to give him a wake-up call)...I will be working with a pristine, restored print of the 1920 film which has been colour-tinted...and like Saturday's event, this one is also free to the public (!)...there will be a cash-bar on hand to raise the already heady spirits of the dead and the quick in attendance (which side are you on?)... check out my short story <a href="http://www.garylucas.com/www/news/newsfile/hall/lucaslayout.pdf">"Me and the Golem"</a> here to put yourself in the appropriate mood :-)Gary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-28388604626718675382008-10-13T19:57:00.024-04:002008-10-22T13:21:35.676-04:00Beyond the Palin (She Do the Police in Different Voices)/Axolotl!OY VEY--Bill Kristol ("Blue Persuasion") is at it again, boys and girls...<br /><br />Not content to have activated Sarah P (a lifesize Chatty Cathy doll if ever there was one) by pulling her string, puppet master-like, in his "exclusive" interview last week in the pages of the Times, encouraging her to take up thy staff and spew her litany of smear-by-association anti-Obama canards both in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/opinion/06kristol.html">his column</a> and live on the road, where she was observed shamefully whipping up the redneck Republican rabble into lynch-mob overdrive ("Kill him!" "Traitor!" "Off with his head!" "Not one of us!") with frothings about Obama, William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright--no, not content with his community organizing, Little Billy has now seen the error of his ways, as Obama's poll numbers continue to soar...<br /><br />And thus yesterday in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/opinion/13kristol.html">his Op-Ed column</a>, Billy Boy recanted (sort of)-- <br /><br />Realizing that baiting Obama with the rabble's curse hadn't diminished our next President's standing one iota, may indeed have had the opposite effect, Cowabunga-low Bill now urges both McCain and Palin to lay off their junior Westbrook Peglering schtick (the inimitable Frank Rich got it so right in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12rich.html">his column last Sunday</a>...By urging both them both to finish out their days on the campaign trail in Happy Warrior Mode (hopefully on their way to the Happy Hunting Ground), Kristol would have them substituting the Politics of Ecstasy for the Politics of the Pigsty...<br /><br />Ya boo--mighty White a' ya, Bill!!<br /><br />(and I don't mean Theodore)...<br /><br />"Gobble Gobble/We Accept You/One of Us!/ One of Us!"<br /> -- initiation song from Tod Browning's "Freaks", 1932<br /><br />"I am a member of the rabble in good standing"<br /> --<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2096673/">Westbrook Pegler</a><br /><br /> "Offend one--and you offend them all!"<br /> --prologue to Tod Browning's "Freaks", 1932<br /><br />"I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member"<br /> --Groucho Marx, telegram to the Friar's Club of Beverly Hills, as quoted in "Groucho and Me", 1959<br /><br />Axolotl! <br /><br />I had no sooner returned from my recent sojourn south of the border down Mexico way with Spanish poet Bruno Galindo when I was startled in the midst of my morning sesame bagel nosh (a sesame bagel shmeared with generous lashings of butter and Marmite--try it, you might like it!) by an article in the same-said Times, concerning the near extinction of the indigenous Mexican salamander, the mythic axolotl, from the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/world/americas/09mexico.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=axolotl&st=cse&oref=slogin">waterways of our fair neighbor to the South</a>,<br /><br />Axolotl!!<br /><br /> (Shake and shake the ketchup bottle/first none comes out/then Axolotl)... <br /><br />As an inveterate reader of Mad magazine in my chequered-demon youth, axolotl is definitely a word to conjure with (along with fershlugginer, Arthur...and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potrzebie">potrzebie</a>)...<br /><br />Sorry to say, no axolotls were spotted on this trip...<br /><br />Although the main gig at the poetry festival I performed at last Saturday night in Mexico City (Poesia En Voz Alta '08) was held in a large tent on a leafy waterway abutting the stately Casa del Lago manse...so if an axolotl was lurking in the shoals, he or she did not make themselves manifest...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Bruno Galindo and Gary Lucas, Poesia en Voz Alta '08 Festival, Casa Del Lago, Mexico City, 10/11/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/mexico14_524.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/mexico14_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary shakes some action at Poesia en Voz Alta '08 Festival, Casa Del Lago, Mexico City, 10/11/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/mexico6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/mexico6_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Sombra Hombre, Gary Lucas and Bruno Galindo, Poesia en Voz Alta '08 Festival, Casa Del Lago, Mexico City, 10/11/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/mexico5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/mexico5_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">click to enlarge</span><br /><br />In any case, in the midst of special fx-grade thunder and lightning and rain pouring down so hard it got picked up by the mics onstage, providing a mad-patter percussive patina under our music-and-spoken-word alchemy , Bruno and I performed before a sold-out, incredibly enthusiastic crowd last Saturday night (this particular festival REALLY knew how to promote an event right...in fact most of my second day in Mexico was spent in interviews with the national dailies...plus we did a live appearance crosstown on Radio Reactor...you can read some of our press here, from <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/El_Universal.jpg">El Universal</a>, <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/Excelsior.jpg">Excelsior</a>, <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/Milenio.jpg">Milenio</a>, and left-political magazine <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/rvw/Emmeequis.pdf">Emmeequis</a>)...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Hands across the aether, Poesia en Voz Alta '08 Festival, Casa Del Lago, Mexico City, 10/11/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/mexico9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/mexico9_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary runs the voodoo down for national Mexican TV, Poesia en Voz Alta '08 Festival, Casa Del Lago, Mexico City, 10/11/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/mexico10.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/mexico10_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Blurring Boundaries, Poesia en Voz Alta '08 Festival, Casa Del Lago, Mexico City, 10/11/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/mexico11.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/mexico11_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Mexico City Poster Boys Lucas and Galindo</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/mexico12.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/mexico12_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photos by Jesus Quintero | click to enlarge</span><br /><br />This was my first time in Mexico City, and I totally fell in love with the place, the people, the sights, the sounds...and the food, omigod, 3 count them 3 tacos al pastor (pork shavings and pineapple in a soft taco) available for a buck fifty at various roadside attractions, and on and on...truly a Blade Runner megalopolis on a human scale, surprisingly verdant beyond belief despite the palpable air pollution, it combined for me (in a way) the best aspects of Tokyo and Paris...<br /><br />After being picked up at the aeroporta by the lovely Lola Alfonso I was ensconced in a super-cool old art-deco hotel, the <a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/north-america/mexico/mexico-city/hotel-detail.html?vid=1154654575299">Imperial</a> in the Reforma district of central Mexico City--just down the road apiece from Cafe La Habana in La Zona Rosa, a 24 hour non-stop cafeteria with fantastic huevos rancheros and fried plantain breakfasts, friendly waiters, and dripping ambiance (Che and Fidel are apocryphally rumored to have plotted the Cuban Revolution there)...<br /><br />I arrived in Mexico City on Thursday Oct. 2nd coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the <a href="http://obrag.org/?p=1639">1968 Oct. 2nd massacre of students and social reformists</a> which took place in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, a few weeks before the Mexican Olympics...and there was an enormous protest march and demonstration taking place in the late afternoon out on the 12 kilometer long Paseo de la Reforma running in front of my hotel, massed battalions of left, socialist, and communist demonstrators (lots of young people and youth groups) chanting and singing, I took to the streets to observe, climbing up on one of the sculptured plinths in the center of the avenue along with many of the press photographers covering the march, and was profoundly stirred by the emotional heat generated by the marchers, whose procession seemed to stretch on to infinity (Paseo de la Reforma is LONG), carrying banners mourning "los olvidados" (the forgotten ones, as in the Bunuel film of the same name); "los desaparecidos"--the "disappeared"--as in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War">Argentina's Dirty War</a>)...when you think of 1968 in a world-historical sense one flashes here in the US on the MLK and RFK assassinations and the Chicago DNC police riot...in France of course it's the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUJZgkhSCq8">student uprising at the Sorbonne and elsewhere, the Situationists, and the general strike</a>...in Latin America one encounters an <a href="http://www.monthlyreview.org/openvein.htm">endless spiral of repressive governmental clampdowns</a> that went on and on and on...<br /><br />Spent one afternoon visiting the actual Plaza de las Tres Culturas (festooned with protest banners left over from Oct. 2nd, you could see where rooftop government snipers picked off protesters in '68 from high atop the roof of the Catholic Church that dominates the plaza)...checking out the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe">Basilica of Our Lady of Guadelupe</a> (one of the world's largest Catholic Centers, sporting the definitive painting of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe">Virgin of Guadelupe</a>--notice how she appears to be treading on a devil's head)...and ended up in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan">Teotihuacán</a> Aztec Ruins, now a designated World Heritage site, where I strolled along the Avenue of the Dead, checked out the Citadel housing the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, and (very gingerly) climbed the myriad steps to the summit of both the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon, film at 11...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary in front of the Pyramid of the Moon, Aztec Ruins, Teohuatican, Mexico, 10/06/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/mexico3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/mexico3_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary on the summit of the Pyramid of the Moon, overlooking the Avenue of the Dead, Teotihuacan, Mexico, 10/6/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/mexico2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/mexico2_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary on top of the ritual dolmen in front of the Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan, Mexico, 10/6/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/mexico1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/mexico1_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">click to enlarge</span><br /><br />Another bright midnight, another blinding downpour...wended my way in a taxi in the hammering rain up some very treacherous slopes with the lovely <a href="http://www.myspace.com/mercedesferrer">Mercedes Ferrer</a>, a supremely gifted Spanish singer/songwriter...took us about an hour to creep slowly skywards up a mountain while we chatted about this and that in the back seat of a taxi, while our intrepid driver kept narrowly swerving to avoid the oncoming rush of traffic, finally alighted on the summit of a misty mountain hopping with a stunning view of Mexico City, wherein resides Mercedes' producer, a Sony Mexico recording artist with a comfortable home studio, I unfurled my National steel and poured honey and silver over 2 tracks for her forthcoming album...<br /><br />Bruno was a brilliant guide during my week in Mexico City, he lives in Madrid but has visited and performed in Mexico many times, so he took me to some cool places (such as the awesome Historic Center, and Plaza Garibaldi, sipping tequila while strolling mariachis perform right in your face was big fun)...at our concert we did an hour where I mashed-up burnished dark blues, skewed funk, 30's Chinese pop, and spacious electronic ambience with the word, the almighty word...played some new music on the steel near the end of the show, a lovely piece I wrote in Paris this year, Bruno improvised a poem so heartfelt it brought a tear while I was playing/auditing...and the crowd took us to its collective, uh, bosom...<br /><br />And we did it again here in NYC last Sat. night Oct. 11th at the Bowery Poetry Club, before a nicely full house that included Perry Brandston, partners with the late DJ Adam Goldstone in the Departure Lounge Crew...and the lovely radiant electronica siren the great <a href="http://www.vanessadaou.com">Vanessa Daou</a>...(and we're doing it again tonight at the Gershwin Hotel)...<br /><br /> Our Casa del Lago show was filmed for a national Mexican television program so I should have a clip soon hopefully to post, I will post photos soon as well...the fans came out in droves (there are a sizable contingent of Beefheart fans in Mexico City), Phillip Johnston's brother Tom was there, as was Ruy Trueno and Catalina and Jesus Quintero and Pacho the major-domo from the Festival and so many cool people I met on this trip...<br /><br />There was an incredible poetry slam at the Zinco Jazz Club the night before I left, with a crack young post-bop jazz combo wailing between sets of the very heated and protracted competition and where the energy being thrown-down from the young and attractive Mexican poets--seemed every other person in this wall to wall-peopled subterranean club was a poet!--was truly inspiring and remarkable (brought to life vivid reveries of the Visceral Realist Poets in Roberto Bolano's stunning novel "The Savage Detectives"--treat yourself to this magnificent book, one of the most memorable in years, read it back to back with Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano" in late-summer--whew!)...such great energy, such a good night, I adore Mexico, it is something else, coolest new port of discovery for me since India...<br /><br />and if McCain wins...and Katz's Deli on Houston Street goes out of business (my two benchmarks)--guess where you'll find me...<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />Gary<br /><br />Ps Night before I left I was invited to sit and be filmed and to wax poetic about my pal Nick Cave for a forthcoming series of 14 documentary films commissioned by Mute Records, each one concerning one particular album of Nick's vast Bad Seed output, I chose "Henry's Dream", but really it would be hard to pick a favorite (and I go way back in my enthusiasm for The Birthday Party's fabulous singles "Release the Bats" and "Nick the Stripper")...Nick and Warren Ellis have written music for the new <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/arts/music/14cave.html?_r=1&ref=theater&oref=slogin">BAM Production of Buchner's "Woyzeck"</a> and I am going to try and attend--hey, Nick's my guy--though as good as it no doubt is, it will be facing mighty stiff competition from Alban Berg, whose opera "Wozzeck" I devoured/dissected in Beekman Cannon's "Opera as Drama in the 20th Century" seminar at Yale, where it burned itself into my brain--"Der Wasser is Blut!"...indeed...<br /><br />PPS My sister Bonnie, an exceptionally gifted visual artist, has new work up in a cool new group show entitled "Wrestling Angels" on now until Nov. 1st at the ISCP Gallery at 1040 Metropolitan Avenue (corner of Morgan Ave. in Williamsburg, curated by Marion Callis...If you're in town I highly recommend checking Bonnie's work out, her art touches on psycho-sexual issues from a feminist perspective and are always rendered immaculately, either in her faux-innocent oil paintings--I used one for the cover of my album compilation "Operators are Standing By", you can see it <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/disc/oper/oper300.jpg">here</a>...the original title of the painting is "Girl with Big Shoes", and it really speaks to a loss of innocence in pursuit of one's goals (good metaphor for strivers everywhere)--or also her amazing labor-intensive assemblages utilizing small dolls, ribbons, wedding cake accouterments, frilly "feminine" things that hint at a very Freudian troubling of the waters of adolescence...the other artists in the show (Laura Elkins and Carol Peligian) are showing strong work there also...Go Now.Gary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-38492844712041170572008-09-29T22:01:00.024-04:002008-10-12T12:06:11.541-04:00Nice Jewish Boy (sometimes!) in Berlin and BeyondMercury turning retrograde the other day always affects me, a double Gemini, intensely...<br /><br />so much so that I skipped over rather a large chunk of time passing in my last blog entry, only to feel now the irrepressible urge to revisit it, sifting sand through my fingers, shifting words a la recherche de la temps (frank) perdu...<br /><br />"Alright now we're gonna go back...to 1940...no money...and I live...in Berlin..."<br /><br />Nope, not that retrograde...let's set the wayback machine for Fall 1988 when I arrived in Berlin to play the Berlin Jazzfest solo--my first major showcase in Europe, after being written up in the NY Times as the "Guitarist of 1000 Ideas" after a performance that July at the Knitting Factory's "What is Jazz Festival" (search me)...in any case I noticed upon arrival that the Berlin Jazzfest was coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht that very Festival week, and I determined to make some kind of statement about it music-wise, I didn't really premeditate it beyond feeling that it was my artistic duty then and there as a sensitive Jewish artist obsessed with his roots to make some kind of statement about it, particularly in Berlin, a city I found devastatingly beautiful (for years my favorite place to play in Europe) but haunted by ghosts--and which seemed to offer a kind of unlimited license for experimentation...<br /><br />And at my evening performance 5 days before the 50th anniversary of this horrific event--the beginning of Open Season on Jews in Germany, Nov. 9th 1938--at the venue in Charlottenburg named The Delphi, I ended my evening's performance appropriately/oracularly enough with a new composition improvised on the spot, which incorporated electronic shrieks with eerie quotations from "Deutschland Uber Alles" and "Hatikvah", which I entitled "Verklarte Kristallnacht" ("Transfigured Crystal Night"), after Schoenberg's "Verklarte Nacht" (one of my favorite of the great composer's works, particularly in the reduced chamber version). You can hear my little momento mori musicale <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/media/audio/VerklarteKristallnacht.mp3">here</a>....<br /><br />After I was finished playing my piece, in a kind of trance I announced the title to the packed house, and there was a stunned silence--followed by an ovation from the audience (there had been very few musical commemorations of the Holocaust at that point, I can recall Schoenberg's "A Survivor from Warsaw" only--also regarding another Holocaust, Penderecki's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threnody_to_the_Victims_of_Hiroshima">"Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima"</a>, whose title was apparently an after-thought). The next day my photo appeared in the Berlin Morgenpost with the caption: "Es is Lucas!" accompanying a glowing review of my concert, which helped set the stage for years of solo touring in Europe (stone alone)...<br /><br />And one year after my performance at the Berlin Jazzfest, on the 51st anniversary of Kristallnacht itself, Nov. 9th 1989, the Wall came down...<br /><br />So it was with a feeling of great satisfaction that I returned literally to the scene of the crime several weeks ago, in an eternal ricorso, bringing it all back home for me in spades when lovely Nicola Galliner, British ex-pat, longtime Berlin transplant, and Berlin Jewish Film Fest selectress who had chosen my Golem performance on a recommendation from Les Rabinowicz of the Australian Jewish Film Festival (thanks Les!) picked me up at Tegel Airport (which they are soon shuttering, what a pity-- an exquisite airport in miniature set square in the midst of the city, Tegel was always a delightful point of debarkation/arrival) early Saturday morning Sept. 13th after a tempestuous ride in from JFK and deposited me in the <a href="http://www.hotel-savoy.com/default.aspx?lang=en">Hotel Savoy</a>, a 4 star directly across the street from The Delphi...in fact the same Old World gemutlich hotel I had stayed in in 1988 on my first maiden voyage to Berlin...<br /><br /> My room this time was 2 doors down from the "Henry Miller" suite (he favored the Savoy and stayed there a lot--in fact, at dinner that night with Nicola, Ihno von Hasselt (one of the Berlin Jazzfest directors whom I well remembered from my first performance there 20 years ago, he'd looked rather concerned backstage truth be told immediately after I had conjured "Verklarte Kristallnacht" up out of the rather rarefied thin air of the Delphi), and Ihno's charming and witty companion, the famous German film scenarist and director Christa Maerker (who made a <a href="http://www.sfjff.org/public_html/sfjff19/filmmakers/26D.html">brilliant documentary about Phillip Roth</a> a couple years back), Christa recalled being friends with the very German mistress of Henry Miller, who kept him enthralled at the Savoy for lo many a year (there's also a "Miro" and a "Picasso" room in the Savoy, replete with dozens of similar beast-with-two-backstories for each chambre, you can be sure)...<br /><br />My "Golem" show that next afternoon at the Berlin Jewish Film Festival was held at a stunning 1920's art-deco theater on Rosa-Luxemburg Str., the <a href="http://www.babylonberlin.de/">Kino Babylon</a>, which stands in Kreuzberg in East Berlin--a theater designed by famed German expressionist architect Hans Poelzig who was the set designer on "The Golem" (and whose 3D architectural rendering of the medieval Prague ghetto was actually constructed outdoors on a plot of land the size of a football field, where Templehof airport now exists)...<br /><br /> The Kino Babylon boasts a dazzling daily schedule of arthouse and film festival fare under to the artistic leadership of its present owner Timothy Grossman, a charming German-American whose father Stephen Wechsler , a Jewish communist from New York disgruntled with the McCarthy-era persecutions of the Left back in the day, defected to the Eastern bloc in 1952 by swimming across the Danube and subsequently changing his name to Victor Grossman...he has the distinction of being not only one of the very few American defectors to East Germany (along with Capitol Records pop-star <a href="http://www.deanreed.de/">Dean Reed</a>), but of having attended both Harvard and Karl Marx University--and he has written a fascinating autobiography entitled <a href="http://books.google.com/booksid=CkicRHFh3eYC&dq=Victor+Grossman&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0">"Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany"</a>.<br /><br />Before leaving Berlin, Nicola invited me to a private viewing of a very cool short film at the <a href="http://www.juedisches-museum-berlin.de/site/EN/homepage.php?meta=TRUE">Berlin Jewish Museum</a> on Lindenstr. of Graham Rose's amazing "Mrs. Meitlemeihr" starring my friend the German film cult icon/freakazoid <a href="http://www.udokier.de/">Udo Kier</a> (Andy Warhol's "Frankenstein" and "Dracula", and Fassbinder's last lover), a Lars Von Trier favorite player and perhaps the most outrageous and intense German actor ever outside of Klaus Kinski...<br /><br />I spent a wild night at Udo's house on the outskirts of Koln many years ago with my pal the NY-based artist David Scher, which I described in depth in the liner notes of my 2000 Tzadik CD "Street of Lost Brothers"...here Udo plays a very convincing Hitler, smuggled out of his Bunker at the end of World War II, now living in poverty and seclusion in London's East End after the War, where he emerges occasionally in drag to post letters in vain to Martin Bormann in Argentina imploring him to send money...Udo/Adolf becomes an object of affection to his very yiddische upstairs neighbor, whom he meets at the post office one day, and...well, you just have to see this, I don't know how unfortunately, let's just hope it eventually becomes available on DVD...<br /><br />Nicola also showed me another great short film entitled "The Hitler Sisters", a blackest of black humor tour de force starring Tamy Ben-Tor, a supremely gifted Israeli performance artist and comedienne (her CV is <a href="http://www.zachfeuer.com/tamybentor_bio.html">here</a>)... both these films really resonated with me--along with Israeli artist Roee Rosen's short film <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxHYlcv6AMI">"Two Women and a Man"</a> concerning Justine Frank, a mythical Belgian transgressive Jewish female artist created by Rosen (this clip is a meditation on the character of Justine Frank from Rosen's film, but not the film itself, though it contains examples of Justine's imagined shocking art) and this years <a href="http://www.filmforum.org/films/stalags.html">"Stalags"</a> by Ari Libsker, both of which I caught at Film Forum downtown, some of the best and most provocative cinema I've seen in years...<br /><br />Before I left Berlin I had dinner with my pal Ed Ward, American ex-pat writer emeritus for Rolling Stone and The Wall Street Journal amongst other pubs who writes the amusing blog <a href="http://berlinbites.blogspot.com/">BerlinBites</a>, Ed took me to a cool West Berlin restaurant specializing in Swabian delicacies...coffee with Wolf Kampmann, my longtime jazz journalist friend and supporter...and drinks with Ibadet Ramadani, leader of the great Berlin-based band <a href="http://bands.motor.de/super700/home?lang=en">Super700</a>, Ibadet and her band are nearly done with a new album (I performed on their last one, produced by Gordon Raphael of Strokes renown)--check them out, they are the darlings of Nic Harcourt and KCRW (they <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUyH7goMnm4">played on his show live in LA</a> last year) and they really do deserve an album release over here...<br /><br />Then it was a very enjoyable first class train ride across Germany from Berlin to Amsterdam (I have always loved this particular journey, and Deutsche Bahnhof in general), where I was met by my friend the documentary film maker Flip Nagler... we dined that night at Nam Kee, my favorite Chinese restaurant in Amsterdam, and were quite accidentally seated at a table alongside Arjen Gorter, the great double bassist for my friends the <a href="http://www.xs4all.nl/~wbk/">Willem Breuker Kollektief</a>, who told me a sad story of how the Kollektief's government funding has been cut back severely this year, another sign of the worldwide economic downturn (I wrote liner notes referring to this unfortunate phenomenon for the album "The Universe of Absence" which I recorded with my friend Dutch lute player Jozef Von Wissem which was released on Willem's label BvHaast)...this is a real shame, as the Breuker Kollektief have toured all over the world, including in China and Africa, as unofficial Dutch cultural ambassadors, for the last 30 years, and many of their members have been with the ensemble for that full amount of time...I really hope they get their funding restored, the Kollektief are definitely a musical treasure deserving of support...<br /><br />The next day I lectured in the afternoon at the new Amsterdam Musik Conservatorum located next to the Central Station, a magnificent new building set next to the new main Library/Bibliotheek (an immaculate, incredible edifice with myriad computer terminals for free use by the public) and also the temporary home of the Stedelijyk Art Museum which is currently undergoing renovations...my friends Arjen Veldt and Paul B and family (wife Esther and daughter Bibiche) turned up to document my talks...after the lecturing the family B helped me along with various student friends haul my guitars and massive fx suitcase onto a train at the Central Station, which I narrowly missed as the schedules keep changing capriciously from day to day and I had been directed to the wrong track...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary in Amsterdam, 9/18/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/ac2008-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/ac2008-1_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary gives a guitar masterclass at the Amsterdam Musik Conservatorum, 9/18/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/ac2008-2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/ac2008-2_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary lectures on the craft of songwriting, Amsterdam Musik Conservatorum, 9/18/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/ac2008-3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/ac2008-3_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary goes one on one at the Amsterdam Musik Conservatorum, 9/18/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/ac2008-4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/ac2008-4_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary demonstrates how he wrote "Rise Up to Be" (the instrumental basis for "Grace") at the Amsterdam Musik Conservatorum, 9/18/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/ac2008-5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/ac2008-5_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Knees up at the Amsterdam Musik Conservatorum, 9/18/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/ac2008-6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/ac2008-6_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Gary's Gang, Amsterdam Central Station, 9/18/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/ac2008-7.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/ac2008-7_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">On the way to Breda, 9/18/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/ac2008-8.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/ac2008-8_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Stratocaster's rule, Amsterdam Musik Conservatorum, 9/18/08</span><br /><a href="/www/pict/image/ac2008-9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="/www/pict/image/ac2008-9_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photos by Paul B | Click to enlarge</span><br /><br />With a heave and a ho from Paul B and co. I got on the right train to Breda just in the nick--and arrived in time there to do a soundcheck for my evening performance of <a href="http://garylucas.com/www/id/">"Monsters from the Id"</a> at the BUT Film Festival (B-Movie, Underground and Trash Film Festival), an annual event held by the city of Breda curated by the indefatigable and lovely Dorien from Stichting Idee-Fixe--the gang there at the Electron Club was exceedingly friendly and helpful, the club was the idea space for such a festival, with a huge movie screen and soundsystem in the main space, and a separate porno-kino room set up off to the side like a Kienholz installation, which showed Dutch hardcore loops from the 50's and 60's continuously...<br /><br />Eventually I took the stage around 11pm to play a <a href="http://www.butff.nl/blz/home.php?taal=1">wild x-rated version of my project</a> complete with extra footage from my pal ex-pat photographer Roy Stuart's "Glimpse" series (check out Roy's work <a href="http://www.roystuart.net/">here</a>, and his several volumes of photos published by Taschen Books--he has a new feature film coming out next month premiering in Paris titled "The Lost Door" which I composed music for and played on the soundtrack with him)...I had to return to Amsterdam the next day, but did manage to catch a very entertaining and compelling 2007 feature at the festival which preceded my own performance, entitled <a href="http://fantasticfestonline.bside.com/2008/films/lacrme_fantasticfestonline2008">"La Creme"</a>, directed by Reynald Bertrand...<br /><br />Then it was back to sunny shimmering Amsterdam, where I hung out with my friends Flip and his lovely wife Berenike and had dinner at a fantastic new Turkish/Moroccan restaurant in the Pipe called Bazar, and also spent many hours hanging out in my favorite cinema store in the world, Cine Qu Non on Staalstraat with its owner, my friend Eric, where I discovered an amazing collection of Scopitone DVDs of 60's French and Italian pop stars...and also did diligence at my old favorite <a href="http://lambiek.net/">Lambiek's</a>, the world's greatest comics store...<br /><br />Back home, and Caroline and I went to 2 compelling film events, one a screening last Wednesday at the Alliance Francaise/Florence Gould Hall uptown of the work of my friend <a href="http://marielosier.net/films/">Marie Losier</a>, my favorite experimental film maker, her films are fascinating and provocative, and it was a real treat to see on a big screen such gems as her "Manuelle Labor" (which Marie made in collaboration with Guy Maddin), and also her film portraits of Richard Foreman, George and Mike Kuchar, and Tony Conrad--plus a teaser music video clip from her upcoming 4-years-in-the-making portrait of my pal, British transgender rock icon Genesis P. Orridge (founder of Psychik TV, and also Throbbing Gristle, the only punk/new wave band name-checked by Captain Beefheart/Don Van Vliet as being any good)...Saturday night there was a party for Genesis and Marie at a fabulously swanky loft down in the Battery where they screened more clips from the upcoming documehtary, which I can't wait to see in toto...<br /><br />I should also mention that the documentary <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5tM1coZr4k">"Wild Combination"</a>, all about my dear departed friend Arthur Russell currently playing at the IFC in Manhattan is really worth seeing...more on Arthur another time: suffice to say that along with A&R genius Howard Thompson (and precious few others) he actually encouraged me to devote myself to a life playing music--and I am so glad I took his advice to heart :-)<br /><br />By the way, Howard now is major domo of the cool internet radio station <a href="http://www.live365.com/stations/thespangler">North Fork Sound</a>, and also writes a very <a href="http://northforksound.blogspot.com/">amusing and informative blog</a>.<br /><br />Friday night I went with Caroline and our friend Cineaste editor Richard Porton to the inaugural party at Tavern on the Green for this year's New York Film Festival, sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center (for whom I've been commissioned to compose a new score to accompany Tod Browning's silent version of "The Unholy Three" this spring)...it was a really misty night and a perfectly lovely atmosphere to hang outdoors in the gardens surrounding the joint sampling the smorgasboard of culinary delights on hand, and great fun running into folks such as old friend Dr. Annette Insdorf, who runs the undergraduate film studies program at Columbia, and also Don Palmer from the NY State Council of the Arts and his lovely wife...<br /><br />Have to dash now, getting ready to leave soon for Mexico City and my poetry and music collaboration with <a href="http://www.myspace.com/brunogalindo">Bruno Galindo</a> this Saturday, which we will repeat in NYC on Oct. 11th at the Bowery Poetry Club and again on Oct. 14th at the Gershwin Hotel...be there now...<br /><br />L'Shana Tovah!<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />GaryGary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-52923407812872444062008-09-25T09:08:00.022-04:002008-09-26T10:06:24.292-04:00Goes t'Show You What Uh Moon Can DoShock horror! Prescient science friction abounding:<br /><br /> "Somebodies leavin' peanuts on the curbins<br /> For uh white elephant escaped from the zoo<br /> With love"<br /> --"Moonlight on Vermont", Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet)<br /> from the album "Trout Mask Replica" (1969, Straight)<br /><br />MEXICO CITY — A five-ton elephant escaped from a circus and wandered onto a busy highway, where it was hit by a bus and died on Tuesday.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.foxnews.com/images/441286/0_61_092308_elephant_crash.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.foxnews.com/images/441286/0_61_092308_elephant_crash.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>State officials say bus driver Tomas Lopez, 49, also was killed and at least four passengers were hospitalized after the pre-dawn collision in Ecatepec, just north of Mexico City.<br /><br />Mexico State police spokesman Juan Sanchez said the elephant escaped from its cage at the Circo Union, but he declined to give any other details. He said officials were investigating.<br /><br />The state-funded Notimex news agency reported that the elephant named Indra escaped as its keeper arrived to feed it, knocking down a metal door that led to the street and wandering through two neighborhoods before trying to cross the highway.<br />--Fox News.com, "Bus Crashes Into 5-Ton Escaped Elephant on Mexican Highway", 9/23/08<br /><br />Janitors of lunacy had this to say, also:<br /><br />"The president of Merrill Lynch raised a half-million for McCain before the company was sold last week for half its assumed value. But why do I bring this up? Why? You've heard all this before. So have I. I'm lighting out for the territories."<br />--from Garrison Keillor's "Moose on the Loose in Palin Country", International Herald Tribune, 9/17/08<br /><br />"Merrill Lynch is Bullish on America"<br /> --Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) <br /> Spoken through his horn during "Spitball Scalped Uh Baby", soprano sax/percussion duet with Ed Marimba (Art Tripp),<br /> Woolsey Hall, Yale University, New Haven Conn. 1/72<br /><br />Leave it to fair and balanced Fox News (and me) to actually run a photo of the dead pachyderm (not such a groundbreaking precedent, actually--one of Young Tom Edison's early newsreels circa 1903 actually <a href="http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/dayintech_0104">documented the death of a pachyderm via electrocution</a>...then there was the dead elephant wrestled to earth by the Ymir--name taken from Norse mythology, not to be confused with the Arabic Emir--in Nathan Juran/Ray Harryhausen's 1957 <a href="http://www.dreadcentral.com/img/reviews/20mill2b.jpg">"20 Million Miles to Earth"</a>)...but I digress!<br /><br />According to Kurt Loder, whom I ran into last night co-hosting Dusty Wright's occasional film salon for CultureCatch.com (focus being a screening of one of Martin Scorsese's greatest yet mainly unsung achievements, namely his 1985 flick "After Hours"), all is not rebarbative rightwing nonsense (all the news that hints of mint) at Fox News these days, as the staff can now boast the presence of the estimable Michael Shore, late of CNN, MTV News, the Soho Weekly News etc.--a discerning rockcrit, and all around good guy, shoulda invited you to my "Beefheart Night at the Knit" Tribute, Mike, mea culpa mea culpa..<br /><br />Life is An Obscure Hobo Bumming a Ride on the Omnibus of Art Dept.: <br /><br />Speaking of "After Hours", Dusty and Kurt a'fore hours last night introduced a screening of this claustrophobic, paranoid black comedy set in darkest early 80's Soho as part of the ongoing CultureCatch.com film salon series held every few months at chic Italian Soho boutique Napapajiri...Caroline and I trucked on down to catch again this very special film chockablock with fun cameos by delightful cult actors such as dominatrix badgirl Linda Fiorentino, who was so great in "The Last Seduction"...the actual Cheech and Chong!...late toughguy Victor Argo (one of Israeli cult-director Amos Kollek's favorite repertory players, so good in Amos' "Fast Food, Fast Women") ...and Dick Miller--yes, that Dick Miller, one of the lights of the early AIP black and white Roger Corman opuses such as 1959's <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5668095425624093311&vt=lf&hl=en">"A Bucket of Blood"</a>, also seen munching daffodils in Corman's original 1960 "The Little Shop of Horrors"...<br /><br />"A Bucket of Blood"'s connection to "After Hours" is crucial, as a major plot point of the latter concerns mad sculptress Kiki Bridges (played by a very punked-out L. Fiorentino) who churns out both plaster bagel 'n cream cheese paperweights, as well as writhing humanoid sculptures--and her dalliance with dashing "After Hours" anti-hero Griffin Dunne, who eventually becomes a living sculpture himself, after being accidentally doused by an overhead shower of liquid plaster in the sub-basement of Club Berlin--a definite homage to "Bucket 'O Blood"'s majorly creaking plot contrivance (corpses immersed in plaster later exhibited as sculpture)--not that far afield actually from ancien Soho's nightlife penchant for displaying actual human beings as sculptural props, pace Area's shop-window tableaux vivants, all very Gilbert and George--plot thingy itself a gloss on the central MacGuffin of Michael Curtiz's 1933 "Mystery of the Wax Museum", later remade in '53 by Andre de Toth as "House of Wax"...<br /><br />But why not see for yourself? <br /><br />The entire "Bucket of Blood" is available for viewing <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6303474703905238262">here</a>...and dig that opening beat poetry sequence, with saxophone obligato by a young Paul Horn, years/miles away from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine...<br /><br />Also, while I'm at it, and in preparation for my upcoming Mexico City poetry and music gig with renowned Spanish word-slinger Bruno Galindo, feast yr eyes on <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7877807042167637458&vt=lf&hl=en">this clip from Jack Arnold's 1958 "High School Confidential!"</a>, with Phillipa Fallon as a sexy beat poetess in a sequence which may well have given a 12 year old Patti Smith some, uh, pointers, set to the sizzling backbeat of Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester, "The Kid"), of all people!...wotta cast, too--amblin' Russ Tamblyn ("West Side Story", "Tom Thumb"), John Drew Barrymore, the fabulous Mamie Van Doren, Charles Chaplin Jr., Michael Landon ("Little House on the Prairie", Bonanza's Little Joe--who, as we all know, always gave it away), William Wellman, Jr., Mel Welles (Gravis Mushnik in "Little Shop of Horrors")--and of course, the one and only Jerry Lee Lewis ("Think about it!...")<br /><br />Also noted: "After Hours" score by Howard "The Fly" Shore features major coppage of Blue Oyster Cult guitarist Don Roeser (Buck Dharma)'s triadic/tritonic guitar arpeggios from the transcendental instrumental break from Buck's anthemic "Don't Fear the Reaper", said appropriation occurring in the film's penultimate sequence wherein Dunne is chased through the streets of Soho by "tough titty"-talkin' Catherine O'Hara (Mary Margaret's sister), who rides herd in her Good Humor Truck egging on a mob of crazed Soho vigilantes to Get Griffin Done (having been coaxed into learning by heart this particular musical arabesque by Blue Oyster Cult producer/Svengali Sandy Pearlman for last year's Canadian Music Week seminar--which pitted me playing the song live against the Guitar Hero game recorded simulacrum of the tune-- I know whereof what I speak here)...<br /><br />Ahhhhhh, "After Hours" (luscious, suicidal Roseanna Arquette to hapless nebbish Griffin Dunne: "But if you close/ the door/the night could last/ for evah")...<br /><br />Lastly, final sequence of AH (Paul Hackett, the low level data-entry employee played by Dunne, staggers into his office at the crack of dawn covered with shards of broken plaster after enduring the worst all-nighter of his short life, sits at his desk in his forlorn cubicle, and as if on cue his computer lights up with an ominous personal message: "Good Morning, Paul") is definitely the primary inspiration for the opening sequence of the Wachowski Bros. 1999 goodie "The Matrix", wherein Keanu Reeves, similarly a low-level word processor working in a 1984-ish/"Brazil"ian-style cubicle, is suddenly greeted with cryptic computer messages addressed to his bad self...hey, Art begets Art begets Art (Tripp)...<br /><br />Think I'll take a lunch break now with just-in-from-the-coast Larry Lasker (co-writer of "Awakenings", "True Believer"... and "War Games", starring a young Matthew Broderick, who told me what a big Beefheart fan he was back in 1982 when me and the guys were recording "Ice Cream for Crow" at Amigo Studios in North Hollywood)...<br /><br />More about my recent European sojourns just a little after awhile...<br /><br />xxLove<br /><br />Gary<br /><br />ps It is my sad duty to report that my dear friend Jamie Cohen, who was so great reading at the "Beefheart Night at the Knit" Tribute to Don Van Vliet on April 9th, passed away at 3am on 9/11 in the arms of his girlfriend Donna Love...Jamie was a true American original who inspired so many who came into contact with him, we loved him dearly for his wit and musical acumen in a music biz sadly bereft of both...a formidable A&R man (check his credentials <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=55851938">here</a>), in recent years Jamie had retired from the LA music wars to Santa Fe by way of Austin where he was working on new media projects...Donna tells me he loved the fact that he was included in the <a href="http://www.culturecatch.com/vidcast/captain-beefheart">CultureCatch "Beefheart Night" podcast</a>, and he certainly gives a sensational reading of a very prolix tongue-twister of a Van Vliet poem...he will be missed.<br /><br />Meanwhile, more videos have surfaced from "Beefheart Night at the Knit", including a super reading by Lee Ranaldo and an excellent reminiscence by the great Giorgio Gomelski, and are available for viewing <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/seamcrookedsam">here</a>.<br /><br />Also, there is a teaser track of "Woe-is-uh-me-Bop" from the upcoming Fast 'N Bulbous album "Waxed Oop (An impetuous stream bubbled up)" out Jan. '09 on Cuneiform available now on the jukebox at the <a href="http://www.myspace.com/neonmeatedream">Fast 'N Bulbous MySpace site</a>.Gary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055249.post-44408938935743493702008-08-31T08:56:00.016-04:002008-09-02T12:05:14.188-04:00Kiss Where I Cain'tShock Horror!!! <br /><br />BOB DYLAN, for years my number one Desert Island Artiste du Disque (there is more information contained in the grain of his voice, more pixels packed in the thwack of his lonesome guitar than, oh, I dunno, just about anyone since Skip James, Bukka White, Bob Nolan, Joseph Spence, Chester Burnett, Blind Willie Johnson, Roscoe Holcomb, and Ukulele Ike...sans guitar, one would have to namecheck Caruso--Dylan thought so too, see "Don't Look Back"--Nervous Norvus, John McCormack, Sir Harry Lauder, Paul Robeson, Charles Trenet, Doodles Weaver, William Burroughs, Gordy McRae, and T.S. Eliot)...<br /><br />Yep--THAT Bob Dylan--best damn singer/songwriter/song 'n dance man ever--recently played 2-count them-2 tracks by CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND THE MAGIC BAND on his XM Satellite Radio Show:<br /><br />beginning with "Click Clack" last December, on a show whose theme was "More Trains"...<br /><br />and then just a coupla weeks ago on August 4th, Bob spun the one and only "Ice Cream for Crow" (sporting slide by yrs truly) on his show, rubric of which was "Birds" (come to think of it he coulda played "Golden Birdies", or even "Peaches"--glad he didn't!)<br /><br />Here's Dylan's playlist for that show:<br /><br />Monday 4 August 2008 - The theme was 'Birds'<br /><br />The Rooster Song - Fats Domino<br />Cooing To The Wrong Pigeon - Merrill Moore <br />Bluebird - Buffalo Springfield <br />Chicken - Mississippi John Hurt <br />The Coo Coo Bird - Clarence Ashley <br />Bird On The Wire - Leonard Cohen <br />When The Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin’ Along - Al Jolson<br />Buzzard Pie - Rudy Green & His Orchestra <br />Daffy Duck’s Rhapsody - Mel Blanc <br />Ice Cream For Crow - Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band <br />Great Speckled Bird - Roy Acuff & his Crazy Tennesseans <br />Night Owl - Tony Allen & The Champs <br />Wings Of A Dove - Blues Busters <br />Shake A Tail Feather - The Five Du-Tones <br /><br />and here's what Dylan said about selection number 10, comin' right off Mel Blanc's "Daffy Duck Rhapsody":<br /><br />"Mel Blanc did a lot of voices - our next artist just did one - but it's a heck of a voice. Don Van Vliet was born in Glendale, California - he stopped performing in the 80's to focus on his painting. He's a really good painter but I wish he'd made more records. [tangent about the Corvids - crows and rooks etc] Here's a song that goes as straight as the crow flies - Captain Beefheart and 'Ice Cream for Crow'..."<br /><br />(I wish Don had made more records too...which is why I skated in 1984, after he rejected Virgin's offer to record the followup to "Ice Cream for Crow"...)<br /><br />In any case, this public acknowledgment and testimonial by one certified American Master to his fellow Peer 'o the Realm was (beef)heartening news indeed...<br /><br />and it makes me love Bob Dylan all the more...<br /><br />(btw, I introduced a 24 year old Jeff Buckley to the awesome majesty and mysteries of Bob's "Farewell Angelina" after the original demo surfaced on Columbia Legacy's "The Genuine Bootleg Series Vol. One"--there is a recording circulating of Jeff and I jamming on this song live on Nick Hill's "Music Faucet" program on WFMU well worth tracking down--our version came out once upon a limited edition double cd giveaway for FMU subscribers titled "They Came, They Played, They Blocked the Driveway", it was Jeff's first time on the radio ever, the studio lights were darkened, the incense was glowing, the triangles tingling... and we were burning)...<br /><br />More Beefheartiana: MOMA has a show on now through the fall of great music videos from their collection, and you can see the aforementioned "Ice Cream for Crow" vid (which I singlehandedly got Mary Lee Bandy at MOMA to include in the museum's permanent collection back in 1982) (yes), as well as other delights by Devo, Laurie Anderson etc. (and for my readers who live out of the city,and have never seen "Ice Cream for Crow", <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqRHr5pEIFU">here 'tis in all its glory on Youtube</a>--btw, the Coen Brothers are obviously big Beefheart fans, as they shamelessly copped the tumbling tumbleweed imagery (shades of Bob Nolan) from this vid at the beginning of "The Big Lebowski" (which also featured "Her Eyes are a Blue Million Miles" on its soundtrack)...<br /><br />And finally-- Dusty Wright and CultureCatch.com have come out with a terrific podcast about <a href="http://www.culturecatch.com/vidcast/captain-beefheart">"Beefheart Night at the Knit: A Tribute to Don Van Vliet"</a> which took place last April 9th at the Knitting Factory NYC, and featured Beefheart poetry readings and reminiscences by Lee Ranaldo, Glenn Kenny, Kurt Loder, Alan Vega, Giorgio Gomelsky, Danny Fields, Felice Rosser, Jamie Cohen, Peter Warner, Mike Edison, Billy Altman, and others, and on video, contributions from David Lynch and Anton Corbijn--the live music centerpiece came in the form of 2 sets by Fast 'n Bulbous, the Captain Beefheart Project, which I co-lead with Phillip Johnston, previewing material from our forthcoming second album on Cuneiform--and a surprise appearance by the fabulous Robyn Hitchcock after midnight, which you can view <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEWjKfxKRC4">here</a>.<br /><br />Speaking of Lee Ranaldo: what a great guy!--it was at Lee's urging that I up and recorded several of my instrumental solo guitar arrangements of the 30's Shanghainese pop of Chow Hsuan and Bai Kwong after he and his lady Leah Singer heard me perform several at a Chinatown wedding party for my friends Kenny Hurwitz and Mi-Ling Tsui--and the result was my 2001 album <a href="http://garylucas.com/epk/">"The Edge of Heaven--Gary Lucas Plays Mid-Century Chinese Pop"</a>, perhaps my most successful album (to date) :-)<br /><br />Lee and his band Sonic Youth were on fire last night at the closing of the McCarren Pool outdoor concert venue in Williamsburg where I attended in the co. of my pal Bob Strano--Sonic Youth one of the greatest high modernist bands of all time, true originals--Lee Ranaldo, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Steve Shelley and co.--what a glorious din of ecstasy they make, strings in the earth and air, best enjoyed sitting on a barbed wire fence, chiming celestial harmonics commingle savage discordant feedback and cool lyrics, heard a snatch of my fave "Kiss Me in the Shadow of a Doubt", they closed with an alternately langorous and rabid "Expressway to Your Skull", what a tight ensemble, iconic stage moves, great irreverent treatment of guitars as non-sacrosanct sound carriers (mere planks of wood strung with razor wire)...yeah!! Aaron formerly of Tonic was on the mix and it sounded GOOOD in such a cavernous concrete laden setting, clips projected behind the group were from Crosby Stills and Nash live in Big Sur and Woodstock :-) Most fun I've had with my clothes on in some time...<br /><br />Just back from a family reunion and some musik bidness in Prague (yes I am an honest to goodness card-carrying Bohemian by my father's patrimony) where Caroline and I had a lovely dinner with Czech UN ambassador Martin Palous (who commissioned my arrangements for solo guitar of Czech classical music for the 14th Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution at the Czech Embassy in DC), Boris Krsnak, the Prague-based reporter for Slovakradio, and Pavel Zaichek, poet and leader of the fierce Czech underground band <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dg307">DG-307</a>, their 1997 album "Siluety" is a classic filled with demonic glissando'ed cello drones and dark incantatory lyrics, he's planning to bring them to NYC this fall--miss at your own peril...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Pavel Zaicek (leader of Czech underground band DG307), Czech UN Ambassador Martin Palous, Gary, and Caroline Sinclair, Velryiba Restaurant, Prague, 8/25/08</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/DSC04391_524.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/DSC04391_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Martin Palous, Caroline and Gary, Velryiba Restaurant, Prague 8/25/08</span><br /><a href="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/DSC04387_524.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://garylucas.com/www/pict/image/DSC04387_75.jpg" width="75" height="75"></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">photos by Boris Krsnak | Click to enlarge</span><br /><br /> The next night I met up with my old friends the Czech artist David Nemec (daughter of Dana Nemecova, who was an original jailed dissident along with Vaclav Havel as a signer of the famous Charter 77 document which heralded the eventual Velvet Revolution) and Richard "Faust" Mader, producer guitarist and leader of Czech underground band Urfaust with whom I recorded the seminal prog rock opus "The Ghosts of Prague" (now available on iTunes) in '96, and with whom I made a series of provocative concerts and tv appearances the length and breadth of that country (for sheer sonic mayhem czech out this 5 part Youtube series filmed at the old crumbling former Yiddish theater The Roxy in Prague's Starometska, featuring me, Faust, Czech avant-vocalist supreme Mirka Krivankova, and percussionist/English horn player Jan Cambal improvising live: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrcHeIk3GPg">part 1</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbTT5Pu7QXY">part 2</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea_TGPmZJyE">part 3</a>).<br /><br />Lots more to relate, but 'twill have to wait, Caroline is making "I want to go out and have waffles at Petite Abeille" noises now...<br /><br /><br />xxLove<br /><br /><br />Gary<br /><br />PS For more Beefheart--tune in on the internet this Wed. September 3rd from 4pm to 6pm NYC time to Holland's National Public Radio station NPS Radio 6 <a href="http://sites.nps.nl/jerome/templates/musicportal/programmas.html">here</a>, when Co de Kloet, THE go-to guy in the Netherlands for all things Beefheart and Zappa-related broadcasts the world premiere of "I Have a Cat", our original recorded collaboration which consists of the last known lengthy recorded interview with Don Van Vliet, conducted by Co in 1991, scored with my original music for solo guitar...<br /><br />and if you're in the city next Saturday night Sept. 6th, PLEASE check out Gods and Monsters at the HOWL Festival at 8pm at the Bowery Poetry Club--<br /><br />my boyos Ernie Brooks (Modern Lovers), Billy Ficca (Television), Jason Candler (Hungry March Band) and Joe Hendel (The Latest Show on Earth) are ready to mash it up good, with special guest the sensational vocalist Felice Rosser from Faith...check out this clip from our last performance there recorded on my birthday June 20th, with special guest Felice and the cool Chinese rock guitarist Fang Ke tearing it up on Burning Spear's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq8FDAIS910">"Foggy Road"</a>.Gary Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14542007681961628772noreply@blogger.com1