#i mean there was the specific artist writer duo i can talk about too but like

[sundewhasaudhd]

Hi Tumblr :D 👋

My name is Sundew, I’m a MINOR (high school age) I’m acespec, pan, trigender, xenogender, ambiamorous, and use all pronouns

I’m an artist, actor, script writer, theatre kid, and AuDHD haver

Current hyperfixations: DSMP, musical theatre (specifically Hatchetverse), The Skinjacker Trilogy reincarnation AU, my OC's

Current fandoms: DSMP, musical theatre, Trolls, Hazbin Hotel, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, Amphibia, TOH, DDLC, The Skinjacker Trilogy, ROTTMNT, Helluva Boss, Ramshackle (kind of), Percy Jackson (kind of), QSMP (kind of), Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, Nimona, Mitchel's vs the Machines, Chikn Nugget (that counts as a fandom right?), Bluey, SheRa, Ducktales, Adventure Time, Luca, LMK (kind of), Vocaloid, Tangled the Series, DHMIS, and probably more tbh

I'm currently working on 5 different DSMP AU's/ animated fanfics, and one day I would like to make 'DSMP the Animated Series' and my high fantasy OC's cartoon, both of which would be indie animated and available on YouTube (but we'll cross those bridges when we get there)

This blog does not support cc!Wilbur or his actions, cc!Wilbur supporters DNI

Speaking of DNI, here’s my DNI list: queerphobes in ANY way (and that includes hating on xenogender people and people who use neopronouns), racists, sexist/misogynists, zionists, antisemitic/neo-nazis, islamophobes, and anti therian and anti furry people

I post very sporadically because of school (and by post I mean post creative works, like fanart and scripts), but when I do post, it’ll mainly be DSMP stuff (especially my own AU’s), but I will also post stuff for other fandoms, especially Hatchetverse

I’m absolutely obsessed with c!TNT duo and with take pretty much any opportunity I can get to draw/talk about them. Same with Ted Spankoffski, Wilbur Cross, and the Lords in Black (and Webby) (ESPECIALLY the LiB [and Webby])

Like I said earlier, I don’t not support cc!Wilbur in any way shape or form. That being said I really really super like c!Wilbur (o!Wilbur and q!Wilbur are neat too) and most of my AU’s have him as a big role

Feel free to ask me about my DSMP headcanons (or headcanons for any other fandom listed above), just know I might not always answer immediately because of school and shit like that

Anyway, I hope you all have a nice day and enjoy my Tumblr :D

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

in honor of today, what are some Stiffelio headcanons??

okay so i love this question!

weirdly, i actually don’t think i have a lot of headcanons? i don’t know, most of my thinking about this opera falls less into the world of “headcanons” and more into the world of “analysis of themes and character development” (as this post makes evident). nevertheless, i *do* have a few things that maybe could be headcanons, so without further ado:

-first off, i am firmly convinced that stiffelio is autistic or at least some sort of neurodivergent-coded. tell me this man is neurotypical. tell me. you can’t. *

-stiffelio and lina fell head over heels for each other at first sight. because of course they did. but love changes, of course, and as shown in the opera, they both really struggle with understanding and weathering those changes.

-lina and raffaele first met each other at the wedding reception. stiffelio introduced them. raffaele never got over her despite (and also probably because of) his fuckboy tendencies. lina had no interest in him.

-while realistically both in the world of the opera as is and in more modern equivalents, i *know* lina likely wouldn’t have an actual job (or at least not one outside the church), i absolutely love the idea of her being involved in some sort of multifaceted creative profession. either as an artist/art restorer specializing in religious art or as a writer/editor. something about working with the past while also turning these things on their heads and creating something new from it. that just feels so right for her, and somewhere in my head that makes a thematic parallel between her and her husband.

-lina is left-handed. some people talk about this being the mark of the devil but she thinks it’s absolutely ridiculous, except for a very brief period of time around the events of the opera when she wonders if that might actually be true, if that really means she will forever have the devil within her. (she has to learn that she will never be perfect but that’s alright. she is trying to be good. she is good.) lina never makes an effort to do things with her right hand instead—what’s the use? *

-count stankar never feels truly forgiven for killing raffaele. or for any of this. he has serious trauma. he dies not too long after the events of the opera.

-arguably the most important headcanon of all: while the opera makes no mention of what happens to our leading duo after the curtain falls, i DO believe that ultimately they get back together and they make their community a more truly loving place and they live happily ever after. it’s hard but i believe they can do it.

(oh also stiffelio and lina never have kids because lina doesn’t want any but they become the BEST older second cousins to all lina’s cousins’ kids.)

*edit to clarify: “but savannah if everyone thinks lina has the devil within her bc she’s left handed then what about stiffelio being neurodivergent” a) look not all kinds of neurodivergence are immediately obvious, b) stiffelio is neurodivergent in a way that helps him be better at his very highly specific job, and c, and i cannot stress this enough: he is a dude.

(also not all neurodivergences and such were seen that way by all people. not even back then.)

[thecorruptedquietone]

When did you start liking K2? And what caught your attention about the ship? :o

So somewhere around winter of 2010 my friend started showing me a bunch of ship art because they were well aware I’d been a long-time SP fan. Most of it was actually Style but some was K2. And, since Kenny and Kyle have literally always been my favourites, it was kinda natural for me to declare them the OTP.

And they have run my life ever since. 

[sl-walker]

All right, since I’m in the middle of a flare and have to work manual labor for the next four days despite it, I figured I would make myself -- and hopefully other people -- laugh by talking about one of my favorite OG Captain Marvel stories. Namely, from Whiz #50, with a cover date of January, 1944, meaning it was probably produced sometime in late 1943.

I want to share it because why not, this is some absurdly charming stuff.

I’ll get more into why it’s one of my favorites as we go, in the form of running commentary. So, full story (with said commentary) under the cut. If you wanna just read the story without my commentary, stick to the pictures. XD

First, let me say that the cover and splash page definitely live up to the story, though the cover’s a bit more sensationalized. But the premise is pretty damn simple: Our intrepid hero and his newsboy alter ego are on vacation. Cap decides to go swimming. It goes hilariously wrong and thus ensues a bit of a madcap adventure, no puns intended.

Second, the fact that Cap and Billy are depicted as essentially different entities makes what Billy does next the ultimate trolling:

Gee, airing out the stolen laundry on the radio? Really? I’ll leave it up to you, gentle reader, whether Billy actually was trolling his own alter-ego for ratings or whether he was just innocently sharing the story while his other-self winced quietly in whatever ether-space he exists in when not front-and-center.

Either way, I love it.

Continuing on...

I get a kick out of the fact that Billy’s monologue is that he’s no dare-devil. One, because that’s so obviously not true in any way -- (that kid is awesomely, sometimes recklessly brave on the regular even without Cap) -- but two, because the bridge is actually named Dare-Devil Bridge. We aren’t given any reason why this dangerous potential death-trap is there, hanging without so much as a gate or a warning sign or anything, because we don’t need one. It’s there specifically for what happens next.

Which, of course, is Billy calling in Captain Marvel, who does some light complaining about the situation Billy left him in. There’s no bite to it, which I find adorable -- Cap actually does get frustrated once or twice in other issues with Billy calling on him for mundane stuff, though he’s never mean about it -- but there is a bit of the sense of being put-upon there that’s just-- I dunno, cute. It’s something I miss a lot in the various post-crisis takes on the character: That duality, that difference in personality, and the way each of them responds to different situations. Often, they’re on the same page, but notably, sometimes, they aren’t.

Someday, I promise, I need to sit down and write how I think that works between those two without being a truly frightening mental illness manifested, what with them being the same person but not the same person. Because I have so many ideas, and I’ve only had since the early-2000s to percolate them. LOL! But until then, just enjoy this.

Here is another reason why I love the Golden Age Captain Marvel books and why I love this specific story: This is an absolutely normal, mundane thing to do. It’s the human thing to do. These aren’t the actions of some super-serious superdude. These are the actions of a pretty shockingly normal guy doing something mundane. And a whole story is built around that normalcy.

It’s cute. It’s funny. It’s the reader already knowing that he’s getting himself into a situation that he absolutely could have avoided, but also completely understanding how it happened anyway. It’s pretty brilliant writing: I say this as a pretty damned good writer myself.

So much of the reason why, I think, Cap was so endearing as a hero is that humanity. He’s got pretty much god-tier power in the Golden Age, once his powerset is established. He’s utterly invulnerable to all physical harm while powered up. But-- he’s human. He knows he’s human. He acts like it, and decides, “You know what? I’m going skinny-dipping.”

He and Billy are both characters it’s so easy to empathize with.

Also, a reminder that the art under Chief Artist C.C. Beck is really, really good. (He had a whole stable of artists to help produce this stuff!) Ignoring registration issues on the printing press, the actual line art is amazingly good; proportion and perspective and consistency.

But anyway--Cap does get to enjoy his swim. But, then, oh no.

I love the idea of a world where the prime hero -- and he definitely is in that world -- can take off his suit and go swimming, and where someone else is bold enough to steal the damn suit off of him. The first time I read this, I started laughing here. Not at him, but at the situation he’s found himself in. At the idea that some random passer-by saw Captain Marvel’s costume and went yoink!

Another thing I love about this particular story is how much Cap and Billy have to work together, just by necessity. Like-- it’s just really good. But anyway, thank everything Billy Batson is on the ball, coming to the rescue.

Sheer bad luck via the weather keeps this story rolling along in hilarious misdirections. Realistically, that uniform probably wouldn’t be all buttoned together (we see Cap take off pieces of it aside the pants in other issues, including socks!), but who cares? The point of the story is that giant bear rug on the floor’s gonna get put to use.

Man, when have you ever seen Superman creeping naked through some stranger’s house wearing nothing but a random polar bear because he went skinny dipping? No wonder these comics sold so well. This next panel is when I start wheezing, though, and pretty much keep wheezing.

“A lady, too! I’ve got to get away from here!”

I’m dying at this point. That’s such a characteristic response, and yet, I think that’s why it’s funny.

Anyway, because this is an excellent story (I mean this without an ounce of irony, too), our dynamic duo stumbles across a plot in play to rob the hotel they’re staying at.

Here’s a big part of why this is such a good tale: Everything fits. Even when it isn’t explained, like Dare-Devil Bridge, it still fits. Why is the tree down? Because there was just a thunder storm, the same one that blew Cap’s suit into the room with the gangsters.

I don’t know if this is Otto Binder’s story, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. It’s a complete story told in relatively few pages that accomplishes everything it’s meant to.

Anyway, using foliage as cover, Cap gets to be heroic----then Billy gets to get back to the business of trying to stop the robbery of the hotel and get his heroic alter-ego dressed again.  Which leads to a rather adorable and funny scene of Billy not only trying to describe what Captain Marvel wears, but what size it would need to be tailored in.

(Cap is supposedly a 44 for a suit coat, we find in some earlier appearance, which would refer to his chest size.  So, an XL for shirts and suit-coats.  He’s a big guy, but he’s actually not a hulking huge guy.  But more on that later.)

I love the fact Billy tries to like-- use himself as a model.  Maybe in another ten years, kiddo.  Billy’s actually pretty buff for like a 12-14 year old, he’s not a scrawny kid at this point, but yeah, no.  LOL!

Another thing I also really, really love about this style, though, is that they draw Captain Marvel as being strong, as having a powerful build-- but not as a dehydrated body-builder with deep cuts. He’s got human proportions, regardless of his strength; he’s got a human build, not a superhuman one.

C.C. Beck had a lot of things to say about superheroes who were just muscles on top of muscles, all clearly defined, and he didn’t like it.  As someone who first got into comics in the early 90s with Jim Lee’s X-Men--

I do get Beck’s point.  I not only get it, but I really highly approve of it.  He maintained to the end that he drew (and oversaw) the Marvel family to look like high school and college athletes, and I can see that.  I think the one person who’s gotten it right in the modern era is Evan “Doc” Shaner, who did Convergence: Shazam!  He not only nailed that strong-but-not-hulking build for Cap, but also how young he looked.  College-age, in fact.

But anyway, enough digression into art and why I like this better than most modern takes on the character.  Also, that’s just a cute set of panels.

I also like that there wasn’t an easy fix there.  Cap’s still in his not-birthday suit, and Billy’s still stuck running around trying to solve the issues at hand.  Next comes some other really good panels:

-snorts-  He’s locked in.  Yeah, that’ll hold him.

Anyway, what I really liked here was again that tandem working; Billy can’t punch through a wall, but Cap can.  Cap can’t crawl out while he’s au natural -- well, he could, but he’d probably rather die first -- but Billy’s got no such issue.  It’s just fun when you get to see them doing something like that.  You have to really think for a minute about the trust each of them must have in their alter-ego.

ANYWAY, we get the rare treat then--

--of Captain Marvel not only yoinking a dude into a dark room, but then stealing his clothes.  Except, not his underwear.  Because that’s nasty.  LOL!

I love that in this series, you do actually get to see him wear other stuff.  Go incognito.  Get his red suit messed up enough to take it to a dry cleaner’s, wherein he ends up dressed like a musketeer after.  Jerry Ordway’s series is, I think, the only other time we see Cap not wearing his famous suit, but it happened enough in the Golden Age that it wasn’t a shock.

Like, I hate to be the one to say this, but I do think DC drops the ball often on just how much you can do with Captain Marvel (or Shazam, depending on timeline, but that’s the wizard’s name to me so mostly I’ll stick with the original name) if you unbend enough to.  It’s not just the costume change, or the duality of him and Billy being the same but not, but also his inherent, essential humanity.

But I am digressing again, sorry. XD  I just feel strongly enough about these versions of these characters to spend hours writing this.

Anyway, only a single panel later:

And that’s that!  Billy Batson has just outed his own alter-ego’s most embarrassing moment to whomever’s listening to WHIZ radio -- thank everything podcasts and the internet weren’t available then, ha! -- and we get to see a recounting of a very fun story.

Like I said earlier, I love this one for its essential humanity.  The hero got himself into this mess, he and Billy got him out of this mess, and stopping the criminals was actually just kind of a lucky stroke thrown in there.  But even though Cap got himself into this, the story never treats him like he’s stupid.  It never treats him like he’s some kind of idiot.  You’re laughing, but-- not in a mean way.

I love how human it is.  How complete it is.  How genuinely funny it is.  It’s a thousand times more funny when you genuinely love and respect Captain Marvel and Billy Batson, too.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this dissertation on a skinny-dipping hero.  LOL!  I enjoyed sharing it with you.

[ahmedmootaz]

What is your opinion if Lena turns out to be the actual niece of Magica? (Like if she is the daughter of Poe?) Thank you.

Dear Anon,

This is a good one. It needs some thoughts, but I honestly believe it will have made Lena a better character. Not to everyone, but to me specifically.

This will be a bit of a disagreement point with other people, but Lena DeSpell was not a person until “Friendship Hates Magic!”; she was a spell-gone-wrong. Think about it; she wasn’t created for some unknown reason and was then used by Magica for her nefarious purposes, she was literally created by Magica for the sole reason of preserving her existence outside of Scrooge’s lucky dime. She was supposed to be a blank slate, something that can replicate emotions, not feel them, and make other people fall for its own emotions. A trap that can talk to its master/creator and inform them of the ongoing developments. A robot that has passed The Uncanny Valley, if that’s the right term.

So why did she develop emotions? Why did she become a separate entity from Magica? My personal uneducated theory is that Magica was scared out of her wits when she was being dragged into that coin. She had the right to be, too, considering she felt everything for fifteen years and didn’t have a body to do anything about it. I assume Lena was supposed to be obedient, as she was quite literally Magica’s shadow, though from what little we know about Magic, it probably takes some effort and concentration, alongside immense skill. Magica might not have had either; she was being sucked into a coin, dragged away from this life, and I can take an educated guess and say that she herself never tried to animate her shadow before this. So that means she had none of the three factors which we assume are important for this spell to perfectly function, perhaps creating a sort of ‘mal-function’ in Lena’s system that made her able to create her own feelings while responding to other emotions.

My argument here is the same argument I used for human-robots: When you create a tool for a specific purpose and then it suddenly starts having a will of its own and refusing to do its purpose, then it’s not really benefiting anyone. If you create a hammer to hammer nails and all of a sudden the hammer turns around and says: “No, the nails are my friends!”, it’s not doing something heroic, it’s malfunctioning. Although in Lena’s defense, Magica should’ve known better and tried treating her as more than her shadow if she was really going to go through with this ‘Niece’ thing, otherwise she should’ve made Lena know what she was going to do from the very beginning. I note, however, that Lena seemed quite happy when talking to Magica in her first appearance, and Magica seemed to be alright with her until post-”Jaw$!” episodes. I assume Magica tried making this ‘family’ thing between the two of them because she noticed the defects Lena already had, and as such, tried adapting. I do however applaud Magica’s removal of Lena from the entire picture directly after her return. From a purely villainous point of view; it’s The Evil Overlord’s List 101. You want to get rid of the hero? Get rid of them quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, it seems to me that she could’ve made her disposal more thorough. Oh well.

So this is why I didn’t feel strongly about Lena. Sure, I knew Magica’s treatment was awful, but after her reveal as a shadow I couldn’t help but think ‘Well...yeah, she was treating her shadow who had serious defects.’, alongside the aforementioned points, of course. When Lena became a real person in “Friendship Hates Magic!”, I could see why any mistreatment on Magica’s part could now be hated, but let’s be honest, at this point Magica probably isn’t going after Lena in particular due to her person; it’s mostly because she wants her powers back.

In any case, what would happen if she was actually Poe’s daughter/Magica’s niece? In this case, I believe it would have set up some nice conflicts on everyone’s behalf. Magica would present the conflict of using your brother’s daughter in order to gain something purely beneficial for you; Poe (should he even exist) would be present the issue of having his daughter used and how far he should go to help his beloved sister; Lena would actually have issues with Magica’s behavior  that aren’t considered abnormal on her part, the list goes on. Lena as Poe or whoever’s daughter presents Magica with choices and makes Lena’s treatment all the more important: Who’s more important to Magica, her biological family, or herself? How far is Lena willing to go to help her family? Lena joining the McDucks at this point would be more emotional to everyone involved or letting Lena decide that she enjoys the world of villainy and make her continue her work with Magica would both make the two of them require to know each-other a bit more and give us one of the strangest, coolest duos (trios? Is Poe allowed to join?) in the series. It could also touch on repairing broken family-dynamics and/or focus on forgiveness and how far one can willingly forgive. I’ve yet to really see that, but it’s mostly because I do not consume much media anyways, so there’s none to blame her but myself.

For these reasons, I believe Lena being Magica’s actual niece would make both character much more interesting, especially considering that Magica, across the various Cannons which the amazing artists and writers of the Duck-Universe have created, is a lot kinder to Minima, her actual niece. Not perfect by any means, but they both even it out; Minima is mischievous and loves to tease her aunt, but she genuinely loves her. Magica does love Minima, but she’s not really kind on anyone if her family.  This would either mean that Magica will be kinder, or that she will contrast with her other depictions.

Perhaps you can find this interesting. Perhaps not. I wish to have explained my point of view thoroughly enough, and I thank you once more for an interesting and fun ask to imagine. Many thanks!

[tiesandtea]

Interview with Artmagic from July 2012 for Spindle Magazine

By Amy Lavelle on July 12, 2012. Archived here.

Doors close; windows open etc. One of the many valuable lessons to be learned from the Sound of Music and when Suede’s door closed, another window of shining opportunity opened in the form of Artmagic: the new project and meeting of minds of Richard Oakes and producer, now vocalist, SeanMcGhee (Imogen Heap, Britney Spears et al.). Then yes, Suede’s door reopened, but fear not, that won’t be affecting the duo.

We caught up with them for a chat/‘peak behind the magic,’ if you will.

Full interview under the cut. Teaser:

SEAN: Please don’t call us “indie”. Do we look like skinny 18 year olds? I was never skinny, or young. This policy will continue. RICHARD: Please do call us “indie”. It’s funny to watch Sean’s reaction!

SPINDLE: Before you hear Artmagic’s music, it seems at first like an unlikely pairing; how did you form? What’s the story behind Artmagic? SEAN: I was a big admirer of Richard’s work and was curious that he’d seemingly disappeared when his other band split. Here was this enormously talented guitarist and writer, suddenly off the radar. I must have been in a fearless, bolshy mood, because I just decided I wanted to write with him. A friend of mine was egging me on, and it turned out that he knew Richard’s brother. So I was able to get in contact and arrange to meet up. We wrote our current single, Forever In Negative on the very first day of working together; once that was under our belts, we both knew this wasn’t going to be a one-off. RICHARD: We exchanged show reels via our manager Charlie in late 2007, but we didn’t actually meet until July 2008, and started writing straight away. Not really the traditional way bands form – meeting at art school, sharing a squat etc… But right from the off Artmagic was never going to be a typical rock ‘n’ roll outfit. I think of it as a project, rather than a band, with none of the clichéd behaviour, image or attitude. Sean doesn’t model himself on his influences, and this definitely attracted me to working with him. SPINDLE: Why the name? SEAN: It comes from something film director John Waters said about modern art; he noted how it lets you take seemingly unrelated everyday objects and, by using them in the right way, turn them into something meaningful. Art, he said, is magic, like alchemy – transformative. And I loved that, immediately, because song writing is art. We take disparate fragments and craft them into the whole. I’m not afraid to appear pretentious when I say that. I’m get exasperated by the clichés of rock, so framing what we do in artistic terms suits me much better than relying on tired posturing. RICHARD: Sean chose the name, my input was a shameful zero! My past career has left me with a strong ethic that the only thing that matters is the music; everything else is secondary. It’s easy to spot the bands in the past who have concentrated on name, image and impact first… and then forgotten about the actual music. SPINDLE: Obviously there were a lot of expectations for the band; were you at all apprehensive putting new music out there in the beginning? SEAN: Not at all; the moment we released the I Keep On Walking EP was when Artmagic became real, and I think we were both hungry for that moment. I can’t really imagine what expectations people had, but I hope we confounded them by giving them a moody song cycle about 3 unwillingly intertwined lovers. I’m immensely proud of it, and I think it was a gutsy way to lead off. RICHARD: Releasing your work to the world is always exciting yet daunting, no matter what you believe the expectations to be. I’ve had reviews of my past work that have ranged from glowing to utterly awful, and I’ve learned to take both with a pinch of salt. The most important thing is that people get to hear it; I believe there will always be someone in the world whose life is touched by it, and that’s the whole point. SPINDLE: How have you found the reception so far? SEAN: Gratifying. It’s thrilling, really, that we’ve already got some very passionate fans and it’s very exciting when we do shows and we can see the audience getting it. Obviously some people have had difficulty moving beyond our previous work, and get upset or confused because it doesn’t sound the same, but you can’t please everyone, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. Pleasing ourselves is the first priority, and will remain so. RICHARD: I believe we’ve attracted the kind of people who like music in the same way we do. When talking to someone at a gig you can instantly tell if they’re there for the right reasons, a genuine open minded love of music as an art form, or whether they’re there just to stare at you. People who have the usual prejudices won’t appreciate what we do, and I have no interest in playing to them. SPINDLE: Sean, how was it making the transition from ‘behind the scenes’ as it were to taking the mic and being at the forefront? SEAN: Artmagic happened because we realised that no-one else could sing these songs we were writing – they were too personal. That, and Richard’s support, gave me the confidence to be the man to sing them. Doing so was both the realisation of a long-held ambition and a serious challenge. But that’s a good thing, because anything that’s easy to do is generally not worth doing at all. SPINDLE: Richard, after taking time out of the spotlight following Suede’s split, how was it releasing new music? Is it something you’ve been working on since the break or did you take time away from it all? RICHARD: I did take some time out to move house, but I had been working on a whole load of music, some of which became the backbone for the album, for a couple of years before I met Sean. The intensity of being a Suede member for so many years cast a long shadow over my work, and it took me a lot of soul searching to realise exactly what I wanted to do with my career. The one thing I was certain of was that I didn’t want to simply join another band, or have a new band formed around me. I wanted to just write and write, and when I met Sean, that’s what we concentrated on. I threw a lot of (probably very confused-sounding) music at him, and he was able to pinpoint the underlying emotions and feelings, and turn them into very personal songs. SPINDLE: How does the creative process as Artmagic differ from previous projects for both of you? SEAN: The process is both the same and different. I’ve written with a lot of people over the years and I’m past being tentative; you have to fearlessly throw down your ideas and say, “what about this?” to get a song happening. Truly poor songs get written by the disinterested or uninspired. That is never an issue with Richard because he’s always got something great up his sleeve, and that means I have to respond in kind. That’s not always been the case for me in the past, so I relish it. RICHARD: The biggest difference for me is that Sean invites me to be involved when he writes the melodies, there is no separatism. This was never the case in Suede; almost all co-writing would be done alone, often even by post. It just goes to show how many different ways there are to write a song. We have a few that have come out of spontaneous jamming round at Sean’s, but they’re a world away from the traditional band rehearsal room jamming! Something that rarely works well. SPINDLE: Have you faced any major hurdles so far as a band and if so, what? SEAN: Not really. Any musician who has a career is living a charmed life, and they know it. Never mind the endless whining we hear, saying how hard it is. It should be hard, because that weeds out the faithless. I’m a true believer in Artmagic specifically, and music generally. I crave widespread appreciation for Artmagic, because I think our work deserves it. RICHARD: The only hurdles, the only hoops we’ve had to jump through have been self-imposed, in the writing and recording. We set ourselves a high standard, and despite having no corporations breathing down our necks, it was hard work, but the end result was all the more satisfying. SPINDLE: What’s next?

SEAN: Touring and festivals in July, more touring in September. Our second single Down In The River comes out in October. We’re working hard to give Become The One You Love its due, and once that’s done and dusted we’ll start thinking seriously about album two. We already have some songs in hand, and some very interesting ideas about how to approach the process differently next time around. But I don’t want overthink it; better to run on instinct.

RICHARD: Live appearances in the many different guises of the band, up and down the country. I’m especially looking forward to the album release gig at St Pancras Old Church on 9th July with the whole band. But I can’t wait to start writing again – I believe that is the most important part of our job. Creativity will outlive industry. SPINDLE: Anything else to add? SEAN: Please don’t call us “indie”. Do we look like skinny 18 year olds? I was never skinny, or young. This policy will continue. RICHARD: Please do call us “indie”. It’s funny to watch Sean’s reaction!

[brigettemusser-blog]

Scientists Find 15 Wonderful Benefits Of Listening To Music

Modern folks music refers to a wide variety of genres that emerged within the mid 20th century and afterwards which had been associated with conventional folks music Starting within the mid-20th century a new type of well-liked folks music developed from conventional folk music. Rock has been out of the spot gentle for several years, but in South America , particularly Brazil, rock is LARGE, europe, the followers are nuts. They hold the huge sonisphere festive that draws lots of of thousands. I've lived in Brazil, England, Russia, and Germany and the dominant music is rock. The rest of the world appreciates rock, however the in america the popular music is pop, rap, hip hop. Numerous rock bands tour outdoors of the U.S. Music immediately has come to auto tunning, lip syncing and having writers write songs, its what can can make the most cash now. So alongside comes Mr. Katanić who now throws his hat within the ring. He is led partially by essentially the most eclectic and prolific Gene Pritsker who I imagine directed him to ship me this disc. This younger musician has a passion for a lot music which finds a frequent residence in considered one of my audio gamers. And, as I suspected, the composers whose name had been unfamiliar (Tauan Gonzalez Sposito, Antonio Correa, Wolfgang W. Mayer, Anthony Fiumara, Wellington E. Alves, and Ivan Bozicevic) are additionally of great curiosity. The one drawback here is the lack of liner notes and therefore there is little on these other composers.

At the flip of the millenium , rock started evolving much more and had some business success, however was battling over success with rap and pop music. Around 2002 - 2007, punk and emo bands have been extremely common among the rock loving youngsters, although then it was known as pop, and was highly regarded down upon amongst other varieties of rockers, it became more accepted amongst them as well when rap and pop took over. There are still rock bands having success right this moment, such as Linkin Park, Nickelback, Coldplay, and Avril Lavigne. There's an entire underlying level of physics which is the premise on which musical sounds are produced," says Brian Foster, professor of experimental physics at Oxford college. For the previous eight years Foster has offered a live touring show known as Einstein's Universe. The venture brings particle physics to life via a discussion of Einstein's love of music; interspersing hard science with stay performance from violinist Jack Liebeck to better show phenomena reminiscent of diffraction and superstring idea. Foster says the musical factor of Einstein's Universe is fantastically useful … for really illustrating what I do in physics at the atomic degree". To the remark, "Not Essentially True, Artists like Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Amy Winehouse, Sam Smith, and always have messages of their songs and I can not name a tune of any of those artists above that wrote a tune about themselves in vain. Especially Michael Jackson ever heard of "HEAL THE WORLD,"WE ARE THE WORLD,YOU AREN'T ALONE. That's simply stupid too say MOST of their songs are about themselves as a result of that's not true. Stop being Narrow Headed and Shut Minded and Dive into the lyrics and see what it means. As an alternative of hatting on a complete genre. Be taught to appreciate what these POP artists have accomplished for us" these artists you've mentioned have been round for fairly awhile and have proven to be some of the biggest musicians of all time. That is talking about most mainstream people today like Nicki Minaj or Kanye West. Many classical composers borrowed extensively from other musical traditions, including people, pop, and (later) jazz and rock. But within the 2nd half of the twentieth century, many composers blurred the lines between these musical worlds so thoroughly that it was impossible to tell whether a specific composition needs to be labeled as MCM or jazz or rock. Throwing up their hands, music magazines and columns usually classified such works not based on the content of the music, however based mostly on which label launched them or what sorts of venue they had been performed in. The Following Finish Consumer License Settlement is included with Pop Life: Trendy Pop Hits. This License is just valid for the person who has purchased an unopened, magicaudiotools.com new and lawfully made copy of Pop Life: Fashionable Pop Hits from a dealer or distributor authorized by Huge Fish Audio. The purpose of that was to say that the radio was full of mediocre music. Fleetwood Mac, on the height of their profession, shared space on the radio with good disco and with unhealthy, soulless disco hits that solely disco devotees bear in mind. So did the Beatles and Pink Floyd.

After Simon and Garfunkel, Paul Simon struggled to form his personal identity exterior shanaheflin531.wikidot.com of the acclaimed duo. On Graceland, he finally stepped out as an inventive force of his personal. By collaborating with famous South African musicians, Simon created a unique sound blending his folk sensibilities with a formidable rhythm part. Sorry if I come off as rude or salty, not your fault for stating an opinion and backing it with details. But you could have quite a lot of time in your life to care about the reputation within the first place. You prefer it, cool. You don't? OKAY. Folks have a tough time shelling out any amount of cash in terms of most apps, so many have in all probability turned away from signing up for this prime-notch option. At $30, it may be robust to justify for many of those with extremely restricted funds, but it's additionally top-of-the-line choices on the market and noeldelamothe2279.wikidot.com it is backed by a fantastic identify…so when the money is there, it's price it. Cubasis is the cell type of Cubase, a preferred utility for computers that has earned its success over time. The cellular version has literally everything you might need and more, in order that additionally means it might be too much for a newcomer to handle.Having stated all that, Scruton is just not entirely off the mark that pop music has at all times had an inclination to commercialism. Debbie Harry stated in 1979 that there is a conflict inside rock and roll between mysticism and commercialism. In the mean time, the business business is profitable that struggle. The music of the biggest stars for the time being - Rihanna, Pitbull, David Guetta, Calvin Harris, Justin Bieber or that death-vamp Lana Del Rey - jogs my memory of the road from 1984, a couple of boot stamping on a face for eternity. It's so brutal, so materialist, so joylessly hedonistic. It sounds lost. There isn't a transcendence in it, no mysticism.

[acehotel]

Slant’d: Interview with Allyson Escobar & Marion Aguas

Slant’d is a magazine, a media company and a stereotype flipped squarely on its head. Their work celebrates Asian American identity through personal storytelling and seeks to shatter stereotypes and redefine the APA experience. This month, we’re partnering with the self-professed #badasians to celebrate the release of Issue 02 of Slant’d with behind-the-scenes content from the hearts and minds behind the magazine. 

For the first in the series, Slant’d invited Allyson Escobar — freelance journalist and only child of Filipino immigrants — and Marion Aguas, a New York City based photographer and artist, to discuss their joint piece, “When Life Was Fair.” 

Both artists navigate and unpack the uncomfortable politics of colorism and privilege in the Filipino community, the global stigma against being darker-skinned, their perspectives on Asian American feminism, life after “Asian August” and their best advice for furthering our current civil rights movement. 

Slant’d: For those unfamiliar with you and your work, tell us about yourselves.

Allyson: I’m a freelance journalist and L.A. transplant living in New York City, currently finishing my degree at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. I’ve covered race, religion, immigration, arts and culture and more, for a variety of local and national publications, including Filipino publications. I’m passionate about writing about people of color — particularly the Asian American community — whose issues and stories I feel often go unreported or misrepresented. I love seeing our community represented in media, both news and entertainment, and seeing us rise in that way.

Marion: I am a freelance photographer so my job is different every day. Sometimes I’m working on straightforward e-commerce projects, and sometimes I get to play dress up on fashion shoots. I’m also very passionate about Asian American representation. In my personal work, I try to make sure to center Asian Americans and their stories. Too often, I see Asian culture still being exoticized, being used to “other” us but not see us. I think it’s important for Asian Americans to represent ourselves in media so that we can give truth to the nuance in our experiences.

We hear you on that! That is the very basis of why we started Slant’d — to illuminate the true, untold and diverse stories of real Asian Americans. Speaking of, how did you come to get involved with Issue 02 of Slant’d?

Allyson: I’m a member of the Asian American Journalists Association, which supports and does a lot of community outreach with Slant’d. I followed Slant’d soon after hearing about the company’s ideals, which I so resonate with, and reached out upon seeing their call for writers’ submissions for Issue 02.

Marion: I responded to the open call for Issue 02. I actually submitted a different pitch, which didn’t work out, but then got invited to do photos to go with Allyson’s piece!

There you go! These next two questions are for Allyson. Your piece sheds light on colorism and explores everything from your personal experiences growing up as a light-skinned Filipina, to the colonial roots of colorism, to its modern day impact on the skincare industry. What compelled you to write this piece?

Allyson: Growing up a light-skinned, “mestiza”-looking Filipina, I’ve often been mistaken for Chinese or Korean because of my skin tone and my straight, jet black hair. [Editor’s Note: “Mestiza” refers to a woman of mixed race, particularly the mixed ancestry of white European and Native American from Latin America.] My mom used to give me “whitening" cream skin products, or tell me constantly to not stay in the sun too long, “for fear of getting dark.” This is, sadly, an all-too-common story in Filipino households, an issue that affects both women and men.

Brownness has a huge cultural stigma, deeply rooted in the long history of Spanish and U.S. colonialism in the Philippines, and the negative connotations that come with being “dark” are still very much alive. Both the Philippines and many Asian cultures traditionally celebrate lightness, in a not-so-subtle way: from the highly-praised “mestiza”— many biracial actresses I grew up seeing on TV shows and comparing myself to — to the lucrative “whitening" skin products I see stocked on the shelves of bathrooms in Asian households. These issues don’t often get covered, and I wanted to write a piece highlighting both colorism’s history and its modern-day widespread impact, while celebrating the beauty of all colors and skin tones.

And what do you hope readers take away from your piece?

Allyson: I want issues of colorism to be more widely discussed, especially in the skincare industry and within families, and for readers to recognize that beauty is beyond skin deep. I want to celebrate men and women in their darkness and lightness, all skin tones and shades, because the world too often tells us to “cover up” what it sees as “flaws.” Colorism is as serious of an issue as racism and sexism, and I hope my piece sheds light on the Filipino American experience of that.

Amazing. Switching focus to the other half of this dynamic duo — Marion, you created the stunning, artistic photographs to accompany Allyson’s writing. What was your process like for creating this art?

Marion: Allyson’s article really resonated with me, as I am also a light-skinned Filipinx. At first, I wanted to go really hard into the Filipino-specific references but after talking to Allyson about the article, she reminded me that colorism affects more than just Filipinos. So I thought more about how to use more universal imagery that could work as projections.

Tell us more about the final photographs — what is the inspiration behind them, and what are you hoping to portray?

Marion: I had been ruminating on what it means for me to navigate the world as a POC, but one with the privilege of my skin color. The compliments I get, especially from Filipinos and other Asians, about how beautiful my skin is, has always made me feel uncomfortable and I realized it’s because it’s a compliment that I haven’t earned through my actions, but one born out of luck.

My skin color tells the story of colonization. It tells me that somewhere in my family tree, a Spanish person had a child with (or maybe raped, let’s be real) one of my family members and my bloodline now has the genes for a lighter skin color. That’s how I thought about the projections I used in the photographs — I wanted to use my skin as a canvas for the projections to further help tell the story of my people’s history and the story of my lived experiences.

It seems like you’re both involved with shaping the conversation around Asian American feminism. What does Asian American feminism mean to you?

Marion: I think it is a perfect example of what intersectional feminism can look like. We can’t forget that feminism is rooted in a history and defined by a specific set of political ideologies that strive to establish equality amongst the entire gender spectrum. We have to remember that Asian Americans have a lot of privilege within the landscape of American politics. Within our own communities, there is a lot that we need to do to recognize the privileges between East Asians vs. South Asians. Asian American feminism, to me, is learning to understand where my privileges begin and end in order to learn how to center my needs vs. the needs of others and using my privileges to speak up for those who cannot.

Allyson: To me, “Asian American feminism” is straight feminism — which is being pro-human, pro-people, speaking out and standing up for their rights and equalities, checking our privileges and respecting people’s boundaries and also simply supporting and being there for one another. It’s recognizing the flaws and differences in people and finding a way to love them anyway. To me, feminism can be both loud and outspoken, but it can also be much quieter — like being a hand to hold, or a shoulder to cry on — and recognizing the needs of others. And that’s okay too.   

How do you see this movement evolving and growing? What can people to do further the conversation?

Marion: I think it’s definitely growing! I see way more Asian American and Asian artists, actors, comedians, storytellers really representing our stories in the best way. And once we start seeing more Asians in the media, this will help the ripple effect that will encourage others to follow their own dreams in storytelling fields. I want to help dispel the obvious stereotypes: that we’re all good at math, that we’re quiet and shy and obedient. Within the queer experience, I want to dispel the idea that dealing with queerness within our families always has trauma associated with it. I’m also seeing more Asian American collectives starting to join forces and work with other black and POC collectives, which I think is important. Until we see more of that, we cannot be a united front. In terms of furthering the movement, we can ask our friends to stand up for us, to help us do the work. To speak up when they hear stereotypes or microaggressions and help amplify our voices as well.

Allyson: I think that, by speaking and standing for others, we are supporting the movement. We also need to show up — at our community events, at the polls, at the movies highlighting diversity and proper representation, etc. These are our platforms, our world stages. By telling our stories and being open-minded with one another, listening to different viewpoints and ideas, we can also have better, more mindful, impactful conversations. We just need to extend the invitation.

What’s top of mind for you right now within the Asian American movement?

Marion: My main focus is really about decolonization. It is a personal battle for me: to decolonize my heritage, reclaim my cultural identity and understand its indigenous roots. I want to further this work by properly representing my story instead of leaving it to others so that I can create a ripple effect that encourages others to also decolonize their spaces. I’m learning more about Asian American activists and their involvement in the civil rights movement. I think there’s a lot to learn, especially about intersectionality, from leaders like Yuri Kochiyama and how she used her voice to speak for all marginalized Americans. I also want to learn more about Asian immigration. I don’t know enough about Asian illegal immigrants and their struggles.

Allyson: I love what’s happening right now with representation in entertainment in our community, especially all the hype after “Asian August;” with the release of Crazy Rich Asians, Searching and Netflix’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Even kids’ shows like Disney’s Andi Mack are breaking ground, as all of these stories and creators are increasing visibility for the larger Asian American community. I do hope to see more brownness, especially South Asian cultures, represented properly in mainstream media and entertainment.

What’s next for both of you?

Marion: I’m going to keep working! I have a portrait series that is ongoing and hope to get published. I want to keep meeting and working with the queer Asian American community to create beautiful and weird work. I’m exploring incorporating text and video to help tell my story.

Allyson: I’m graduating journalism school in December, and hope to still be telling impactful, inspiring stories until my hands fall off.

To see Allyson and Marion’s work in Issue 02 of Slant’d, pre-order your copy here.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

[chiseler]

Happy Cal Stewart, Yankee Comedian

There was very little that was original about Cal Stewart’s routine. He was simply very good at embodying what had, on the vaudeville circuit, become a well established stock character type. But thanks to some fortuitous timing, Stewart, and his alter ego Uncle Josh Weathersby, became perhaps the most popular and influential comedian of the early recording era. His fame was on a par with Mark Twain’s or Will Rogers’s, but his stardom was a direct result of the advent of the phonograph.

The only thing known about Stewart’s parents—and this only by way of his death certificate—was that they had immigrated from Scotland and settled in Charlotte County, Virginia, where Stewart was born in 1856. By his own account—and I should note here that his accounts tended to change depending on his audience, the weather, and the time of day—Stewart left home early and wandered the country, picking up jobs here and there as he went. He was a miner, a lumberjack, a short order cook, and traveled with a medicine show. More than anything, however, he worked a series of low-level jobs for the railroads, where he earned a reputation as a colorful storyteller.

Although by most accounts Stewart had no fixed address, he spent a lot of time in Decatur, Illinois. Decatur was a major railway hub at the time, and the locals came to consider him one of their own. He was so familiar a presence around town he came to be dubbed Happy Cal Stewart on account of his lighthearted demeanor regardless of the circumstances. The moniker would stick, at least for a little while.

His skills as a storyteller  soon began landing him side jobs as a public speaker, and in the 1870s, while working on a train that was carrying a touring production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin from stop to stop, Stewart volunteered to fill in for an actor who was regularly too drunk to perform. Despite that brief taste of the limelight, Stewart continued working for the railroads until 1894, when the combination of a railroad strike and an accident that cost him a finger and several toes convinced him to look for other work.

Given his background, personality and the times, vaudeville seemed the obvious next step. He began by working in blackface and as a general purpose comedian, impressionist, and storyteller. It was around 1896 that his Uncle Josh character began to emerge.

Now, lampooning New Englanders (particularly the accent) in lowbrow American entertainment can be traced back to the late 18th century, but in the decades following the Civil War it coalesced into a stock comic character, a farmer who was both naive and shrewd, a little uptight but rustic. For some reason, all these characters seemed to be named “Uncle Josh.” There were dozens of Uncle Josh comedians out there on the circuit long before Stewart came along, all with different last names. A few of them, in fact, came to be mighty popular. Although Stewart would later claim his own Uncle Josh character just came to him naturally, he had plenty of predecessors to build on.

Initially Stewart’s Uncle Josh Weathersby hailed from New Jersey, but he quickly transplanted him to the north, smack dab in the middle of the fictional rural Yankee town of Punkin Center. And though originally the act was designed for a male and female comic duo, with that hick Uncle Josh matching wits with a sophisticated woman from the city, soon enough Stewart went solo, turning the routine into a comic monologue about the assorted small adventures, tall tales and colorful characters in and around Punkin Center.

“One day Harold Wheeland had a bunch of colored Easter eggs he wanted to hide from the kids, so he went into the barn and stuck ‘em under his brown hen. Well, I’ll tell ya, when that rooster came into the barn and took one look at what was goin’ on, he marched right across the field and beat up a peacock.”

By 1897 Stewart’s vaudeville routine had become popular enough that Berliner Recordings invited him into the studio to record a cylinder for them. The result was “A Talk by Happy Cal Stewart, The Yankee Comedian,” in which he essentially edited his standard vaudeville monologue at the time down to about three minutes. The job earned him a check so of course he took it, but he likely thought, with sound recording being such a novelty at that point, it would be the last one he ever did.

About six months later, Edison’s National Recording Company conscripted Stewart to record a series of twelve Uncle Josh discs. Most of them were, likewise, condensed vaudeville routines, like “Uncle Josh’s Arrival in New York,” “Uncle Josh in Society,” and “Uncle Josh’s Invitation to Visit His Farm.” He also recorded several comic songs including “I’m Old But I’m Awfully Tough” and “Paper from Your Own Hometown.”

The discs were a hit, and Stewart became an overnight national sensation, at least in late 19th century terms. He relocated to New York. Although he didn’t leave vaudeville completely behind him, his efforts were definitely concentrated on becoming a recording artist. Without anything resembling an exclusive contract with Edison, and considering he was paid a flat fee for every cylinder he recorded, he soon began recording for Columbia, Victor, Berliner, and a dozen other little recording outfits now long since forgotten, often recording the same monologues for several different labels.

Which brings us to his laugh—the sort of half cackle, half chuckle that soon became Stewart’s trademark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb5StJh8M_I

Stewart’s Uncle Josh almost never laughed during his live stage routine, as he had an audience right there to take care of that for him. Once in the studio, however, having lost that live audience and moreover having lost a number of the visual gags that were part of his act, he had to do something, so in essence he provided his own laugh track.

In the very early recordings there’s almost a desperation about it, with Stewart letting loose with a cackle every time he pauses to take a breath. It becomes a distraction and at times overwhelms the story he’s telling. As he cut more and more discs—and this may be where his genius as a performer lay—he came to better understand the art of recording. The laugh became a more genial chuckle, and more carefully placed. While at first he was laughing with every breath, soon it was with every punchline, and later still only with every third or fourth punchline. Some historians have argued that Stewart’s laughter was deliberately dropped in the recordings at specific points  to give listeners themselves a pause in which they could laugh at home without missing any of the material. Whatever the case, the stories once again took dominance and, as much as his laconic vocal mannerisms,  the laughter merely became part of Uncle Josh’s personality.

Uncle Josh discs became so popular that whenever anyone put one on the Victrola in a store, small crowds would gather to listen, while other people, it’s said, would call friends and family to play them over the phone.

In 1901, Stewart divorced his first wife and married his second, Florence, who performed with him whenever he went back to the stage, and collaborated with him on the recordings. The latter is more interesting, because while female comic actors were commonplace in vaudeville and female singers commonplace on early Edison and Columbia recordings, Florence may have been the first female comic actor to appear on record.

In the years following the turn of the century, the recording industry was changing quickly, not only in terms of technology, but in the way artists were treated. Up to that point, as mentioned above, Stewart was paid a flat fee for each cylinder recorded, meaning he had to scramble from studio to studio in order to make any money. It was exhausting work, and Stewart found himself spending most of his waking hours in recording studios. But in 1903 Columbia, who had been touting Stewart as one of their top-selling recording artists since the late 1890s, offered him an exclusive contract. The pay was good, but better still the work was easier and it left him with the time to return to the stage now and again. He also had more freedom in terms of what he recorded. Along with his wife, he collected a small ensemble of actors and began recording more elaborate sketches. Uncle Josh remained front and center, but these new discs included several characters and sound effects. Bestselling discs like “Uncle Josh Buys an Automobile” and “The Moving Pictures Come to Punkin Center” soon followed.

That same year, 1903, a publisher conscripted Stewart to write down some of his most popular monologues, which they released as a book entitled, obviously enough, Punkin Center Stories. Stewart was a bit of a writer as it was, having already published a handful of Westerns, but by most accounts he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of the book from the start. Uncle Josh was definitely in the oral tradition, and the stories were supposed to be spoken and heard, not read. Stewart rarely wrote the monologues down and they changed and evolved as he told them.

Apart from some aesthetic discomfort, the Punkin Center Stories led to other problems. Using the stories as scripts, other comedians began recording and releasing their own versions of Stewart’s monologues, usually with unremarkable results. Stewart, needless to say, never saw a dine from any of these imposters.

Unlike songwriters who received residuals when their compositions were performed by other artists, Columbia’s contract offered Stewart nothing by way of royalties . Demanding his monologues be treated like musical compositions, in 1911 Stewart left Columbia and signed with Edison’s National Recording Company, which did offer to pay royalties. Just to ensure he’d get something out of the deal, Stewart began writing and recording more original comic songs.

In 1914, Stewart married his third wife, an actress and violinist. Only problem there was, there seems to be no record of him ever divorcing Florence. Florence did suddenly disappear from his recordings, and while the new wife never appeared on record, she did perform with Stewart onstage. Although there were some mutterings about it in some of the trade papers of the day, some wild speculation about Uncle Josh and his two wives, it doesn’t seem to have become much of a scandal. Not enough to hurt his career, anyway.

In 1916, Stewart suffered a small stroke and collapsed during a recording session. He recovered soon enough and finished the session, but a few weeks later while doing his vaudeville routine in Chicago, he collapsed onstage again. This time doctors were able to determine he had a brain tumor.

Stewart continued recording Uncle Josh records as he could until his death in 1919. He was later cremated and buried in that third wife’s family plot in Indiana.

Stewart was the first great spoken word comedian to have reached the top thanks to recording technology. Although all but completely forgotten today, for two decades he was one of the most popular comedians in America, and without him, well, we might not have any of those great Red Foxx records. We can also blame him for Garrison Keillor.

by Jim Knipfel

[thisiscomics]

There’s a lot of respect given to the past in this ‘50th’ issue (quotes used since Detective Comics reverted to its old numbering, Batman didn’t, for whatever reason), which is an interesting contrast to the significant disruption of the status quo with the Bat/Cat storyline and promise of marriage.

In this panel specifically, I find it both touching and appropriate that Alfred is given his rightful place and the respect he is due- it would be very easy to pick Superman, or a Robin, as the witness to this significant life event, drawing on the World’s Finest or ‘Dynamic Duo’ tags that mark them both as key parts of the Batman’s life. But as Bruce says here, Alfred has always been there, at least in all recent versions of the Batman history- in The Untold Legend of the Batman, for example, he just kind of decides to show up and be the Wayne butler at a point where Dick is already Wayne’s ward. Aside from the fact no English gentleman would be so intrusive, it felt wrong from a contemporary perspective- the idea that Alfred was there from before the death of his parents is what gives him great presence, allowing him to be father figure, confidant, and more. The comment that “I can’t do anything without you” is very true, and puts Alfred right in the centre of the Batman’s life, where he belongs.

As for the rest of the issue, almost every non pin-up/guest artist page is captioned with a location and those that are not famous Gotham sites (such as Arkham Asylum or Wayne Manor) are all named after creators. It’s already been previously established that there are various locations named after past writers and artists, and these are here, along with new ones, expanding the list of creators that get their own piece of Gotham: Finger Tower, Robinson Boulevard, the Englehart Bedroom, the Conway Bedroom, Fox Hall, O’Neil Avenue, the Wein Expressway and Kane Plaza. It’s a little ‘name that creator’ game for fans, and a nice touch for an anniversary issue.

There are plenty names missing from this list, but some of those appear as guest artists- Garcia-Lopez, Miller, Adams & Sale, alongside some more recent contributors (Capullo, Finch, Lee, Daniel etc.). This means that perhaps the writers are a little short changed, since there is only one pair of hands on the typewriter for this story. Alongside those that have bedrooms and streets named after them, I would have liked to have seen- in no real order of preference- Goodwin, Rucka, Moench, Barr, Wagner & Grant, Starlin, Dixon, Morrison and probably several more (artists: Jones, Mazucchelli, Breyfogle, Rogers, Quitely, Davis, for starters). Too many to reference in one issue, certainly. Often people complain about omissions, get overwrought at the injustice done to their favourite creator, but in this case I think it’s part of the fun- shoehorning in 80 years of history would be painful, but taking what’s there and talking about who else you think deserves to be on a similar level is a good way to appreciate those 80 years.

The guest artist pages are also a neat nod to Bat-history, as we see various incarnations of Bat and Cat costumes. One, of course, has been much more prone to change than the other, so it is often Catwoman’s costume that points to an era or artist: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez draws the original purple dress Catwoman, with the extra legs and cleavage that became part of that costume when it resurfaced in the 70s/80s (Andy Kubert’s version is the more demure incarnation). Becky Cloonan draws Catwoman in her Darwyn Cooke costume, while Jason Fabok is very 90s with a Jim Balent based Catwoman. Strangely, not one artist seems to have opted for the strange green fish scale costume that briefly appeared in the 60s:

Or the one that followed it:

Or even her debut appearance look:

But I think these are omissions we can (happily!) live with in light of the general respect paid to the history (both in fiction and reality) of these two characters throughout this issue...

From Batman 50, by Tom King, Mikel Janín, June Chung & Clayton Cowles

[rclentless]

— HIGHLIGHTS FROM RILEY LORDE JACKSON’S FIRST MAGAZINE PROFILE FOR HOLLYWOOD’S UP-AND-COMING THIRTY UNDER THIRTY.

THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT RILEY LORDE JACKSON, is the youthful charisma practically radiating off of them. Despite having never met me, the young composer pulled me straight into a bear hug before welcoming me into their cozy SoCal apartment that they share with two of their close friends. “This is so exciting! I’ve never been on the other side of the microphone before!” says Jackson before offering me a seat on their coach and a wide arrangement of refreshments. They are referring to, what started as a small hobby but turned into a large, podcast that Jackson has been producing since their days in undergrad at Georgia Tech. Despite lack of experience as the interviewee rather than interviewer, it’s clear that Jackson has no problems in the spotlight.

...

When asked what inspired them to get into film production and composition, Jackson barely wastes a moment before responding, “Story telling. You can ask just about anyone that knows me what I’m like, and probably the first thing that they’ll tell you is that I never know when to quit talking. As much as I love hearing myself yap, there’s something really powerful about the core emotions of a story that a score display. Think of Hans Zimmer’s Time. The moment I hear it, I get goosebumps, or Interstellar? I start tearing up. Even think about Hedwig’s Theme. No lyrics, no dialogue, but the moment it begins you are transported the exact feeling’s you love, and hate, so much about Harry Potter.” They nod then towards what appears to be a corner in their living room designated for yoga and work out gear. “That’s why I need to do yoga at least an hour every day. If I get too in my head about the perfect notes or the specifics of a song, I can never finish it, or it’s just [redacted].” Jackson laughs with a large shake of their head before flicking the side of their forehead. “It’s like... alright big guy, stop thinking, just do.” 

Their most recent film was a Sundance nominee and winner, Belly of the Beast, inspired by Jack Abbott’s 1981 book In the Belly of the Beast. While Abbott’s book takes a look at the cruel conditions of the incarcerated, Belly of the Beast follows the lives of four Atlanta based trans and non-binary individuals, working in different fields, and the policing the experience in their every days lives from law enforcement to every day fellow citizens. When asked about how they even began to think about the composition for the score of this documentary, Jackson once again gave an immediate single word answer, “Love.” They go on to detail how it required them to spend each day of pre-production, filming, and post-production with the individuals featured in the film: living and learning from them about them. The result was a brilliant masterpiece of cinema, production, story telling, and of course, music. 

...

Although this is Jackson’s first big break outside of the indie scene, it’s definitely not their first time receiving press. Having been seen spending quite a bit of quality time with other musicians, artists, and models since beginning their career a few years ago, the tabloids have caught wind and run quite a few stories about them as the ‘mystery date.’ “I honestly find it hilarious,” they begin laughing. “I mean, I do get it. People love to gossip right? I’m an artist, so it’s nice to have a wide circle of friends and folks you can turn to for support.” Jackson seems to pick up on the fact that I’m not completely buying their story. After all, they were most recently pictured looking extremely comfortable with a former coworker and actress at the beach in some Instagram photos posted by the actress. “Okay, so sometimes work, friendship, fun get a little mixed up,” they laugh. It’s clear that they’re fairly laid back about all the drama. “Most of the reports are false however. Being new to the big scene, I’ve made it a bit of a mission to up my social game out here. Back in college, I used to do the same thing for various projects I’ve worked on. I really enjoy being able to learn from folks that work within different disciplines and different styles than me.”

When I bring up what working with their ex-girlfriend Layla Broderick, the producer and screenwriter for their upcoming film, has been like, they take a sip of their tea. “I was wondering if I’d get questioned about that.” They still give me a good-natured smile, but it’s the first time they seem caught off guard during this whole interview.  “It was of course a bit strange at first. We dated a little over ten years ago, but I mean how could I not love working with such a talented artist like her?” It’s clear that Jackson isn’t quite ready to open up about anything regarding their past. There have been speculations over the two, but things have been quite tight-lipped from the pair outside of the movie itself. 

When asked about any negative feelings that might be harbored towards each other, they respond, “Oh gosh no. She’s seriously amazing. I know a lot of people won’t believe me when I say this, but Layla’s one of those people that seems super nice in interviews and what not, but is actually somehow nicer in person. I have a lot of love for her both as a coworker and an artist. I really believe she’s going to be the ‘timeless’ star of our generation. It’s been incredible following her from her earliest works to becoming the writer and producer of the next tour de force of cinema.” When I ask what they feel puts her work apart from others, Jackson responds, “She has a powerful voice, and not only does she get people to listen, but she gets people to feel and believe in the stories and messages that she tells. That’s a pretty rare gift, you know?” Whatever hesitation they seemed to have at the beginning of this has now completely dissolved. Even when I ask if there were any feelings for her there, they simply smile at me and reply, “It depends on what you mean by that. She was my first love, my only love. You’re lucky if you get a love like that even once in your life, so I guess, yeah, I do. I probably always will. That doesn’t mean that we’re together. As I said, you’re lucky if you get that once, right? Can’t ask for do-overs.” They laugh briefly, but quiet down once more. “She’s a beautiful human and a talented artist with a lot going for her. I’m not quite sure what her dating life is like, and before you ask, no, I am not sharing what mine is currently, but I’m just happy for her you know? And, I’m just lucky to even be working with someone like that on such an incredible film.”

...

When asked about what is next for the young composer and musician, their eyes light up. “Oh there is so much coming! I can’t say too much yet, but I’ll actually be working with quite a few friends on putting together an album. I can’t say who, and I can’t say when you can expect it to be out, but it should be a lot of fun. I haven’t done much outside of the film industry since I was back in school.” They continue on talking about how it was the work with friends that really helped them establish their craft in the beginning. Jackson used to be a part of a few small bands and duos, and they detail how, as kids, if they didn’t have someone that knew some instrument or how to do something, they would immediately make it their mission to find out how to make it work. Being creative with the materials they had and teaching themself instruments and how to play them in different ways has come to be the basis of their signature sound now. “I am very excited to share that I’m also working now on a small short film with another friend. It will be my first time directing a film.” They pointed their finger at me then with a big mischievous grin, “So if it sucks, you better not write anything about it. Pretend like it doesn’t exist.” 

While their newest film isn’t even released quite yet, something tells me that bad reviews will be little to none in this multi-faceted artist’s future. 

[thepermanentrainpress]

THE PERMANENT RAIN PRESS INTERVIEW WITH ELIJAH WOODS X JAMIE FINE

In the one year since the catchy chart-topper “Ain’t Easy” was released, Ottawa-natives Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine have released their newest EP 8:47, were nominated for Fan Choice and Breakthrough Group of the Year at The Juno Awards, and are currently on a nationwide tour opening for seasoned Canadian music veterans, Marianas Trench. Saying that it’s been a wild year is an understatement, but the electropop duo is embracing life after The Launch with open arms.

ON EMOTION IN THEIR SONGWRITING:

For fans who have been there since day 1, the title of EWxJF’s newest EP has special significance. “8:48” was their audition song for The Launch, an unreleased single that fans have been waiting for since the show first aired. The duo laughed as I articulated my disappointment when I found out that “8:48” wasn’t even on the track list. “You were not alone in that,” Jamie tells me. “We wanted people to get familiar with our writing style and specifically, how emotional it is, before we release it. ‘8:48’ is the most important song that Elijah and I have ever written. We’re waiting for the right time.” 

It’s true that their writing style evokes a poignant level of emotion, but what makes them unique is how it’s also well balanced with a cool vibe and groove in the production. “For me, songs are all about energy,” Elijah reveals. “Whatever the lyrics are about, I try to match that in the production. It’s all about the feel and emotion of Jamie’s voice, and everything else is a landscape beneath that.” Sometimes this comes naturally for him, but other times it can be a fastidious process: “For the song 'You,' I re-did the production 150 times until the drums sat right and her vocals were three milliseconds ahead of the beat.” 

Capturing emotion that listeners can latch onto is easier said than done. “That’s why Elijah is so good at what he does,” says Jamie. “He can tell not only what my emotion is, but also how strongly I’m feeling it and what headspace I’m in. He can tell when I’m holding back or when I’m giving too much, and that’s what makes him a phenomenal co-writer and producer.”

ON “HOLLYWOOD DREAMS”:

The entertainment industry, and Hollywood specifically, is notorious for being superficial. This comes as no surprise to anyone who wants to break into music, but it’s still a culture shock for newcomers. In the track “Meditate,” the duo describe how the dissonance of “Hollywood dreams” has turned into a distant reality. “We had just come back from LA, and we went to this really weird party,” Elijah explained. “One thing we realized really quickly was that we’re absolute nobodies. Everyone is worth millions of dollars. If you can’t offer them anything, nobody cares. They’ll just sit there and talk to you with a blank stare on your face, looking over your shoulder to see if there’s anyone else more important. It wasn’t off-putting because we expected it, but it’s just one of those things where it’s such a unique experience.” 

As people who value authenticity, this shallowness bothered them. “It’s just not us,” said Jamie. “We enjoy authentic conversations and meeting people, and if we’re not able to do that in a social setting, then there’s no need for us to be there. Elijah put it phenomenally well, which is kind of bold, but the perfect way to describe it was everyone was just wearing each other’s money.” 

To them, this was like a metaphor for professional freeloaders. “Every single person there was riding off their coattails,” said Jamie. “They’re not the most talented people in the world, but they were still making millions of dollars because of them.”

ON HOW THEY STAY GROUNDED:

Even though they know that the superficial aspect comes with the territory, they consciously choose not to succumb to it. “We have an amazing core team around us, and we’re doing it without all that superficial stuff,” said Jamie gratefully. “It might not be as easy, but at what risk to who you are as a person? We want this to be a sustainable career that we can have fun in.” 

It can be challenging when some of their friends don’t share the same mentality and get absorbed into the Hollywood bubble. However, this actually has the opposite effect for the duo. “It’s putting as little effort into the things that don’t matter, and putting lots of effort into the things that do,” said Elijah. “We have a really close relationship and we’re honest with each other, and it’s the same with everyone on our team and everyone we keep close in our lives. The bad relationships fall out and the good ones stay.” 

The best way to describe their personal brand is authenticity. “That’s the one speaking point we always land on in interviews,” agreed Elijah. “Jamie and I are who we are first, and then we’re artists. I think that’s what people latch onto, that authenticity of us because we’re just two weirdos making music.” 

ON WHAT SUCCESS MEANS:

At one point during the interview, I commented on the duo’s fast ascent to fame and described it as “overnight success.” They laughed as if they had heard it a thousand times before. “I love the words ‘overnight success,’” said Elijah. “To the public it seems like things unfolded like that, but Jamie and I have been working on this for four or five years now. We were releasing singles and doing sort of well, but as soon as [The Launch] happened it completely changed our lives.” 

At the same time, they recognize that success can also be a daunting concept. “Look at success at every individual industry,” said Jamie. “If you’re a successful artist, it means you’re famous. That’s tough for us. In my previous career, being a chef, if I were successful I would be maybe known in my community. This level of success in this industry means you’re known by nearly everybody. That’s tough because if the next day you decide you don’t want to do this anymore, there’s no going back.” 

“I feel for a lot of people at that stage where they have no privacy,” Elijah added. “It’s scary that the two are symbiotic. It didn’t scare me so much then, it was more like, ‘Huh, I never really thought about it that way.’” 

ON TOUR LIFE:

Elijah and Jamie just kicked off a Canada-wide tour, opening for Vancouver hometown heroes, Marianas Trench. “It’s been a lot of fun. The guys are amazing,” Jamie gushed. “We got off stage [after the first show], and we came to our dressing room and there was a bottle of bubbly and a really nice handwritten note.” 

What they love the most about the tour so far are how engaged the fans have been. “Everyone’s been to a concert where they don’t know the opener, but for us the crowd has been so receptive,” said Elijah. “By song two, everyone is up out of their seats, and we’re like, “Holy!” We heard that about Marianas Trench fans, that they’re just so interactive and excited about the music, and that’s what we love.” 

ON LIVING TOGETHER:

EW: We live in the same condo unit, so it’s hilarious. We literally see each other all the time. 

JF: It’s hilarious, it’s like an episode of Friends. 

EW: Jamie is a phenomenal cook, and she taught me how to cook a dish at Christmas; so every time she comes down, I’m always cooking the exact same dish, which is seared chicken and sautéed veggies. 

JF: It’s time for the next lesson. 

ON BEING AN ICE CREAM FLAVOUR:

JF: Mint chocolate chip, just because I want that in my mouth right now. 

EW: Depends on the day. Some days I’m like, pralines and dick, I don’t know... [laughs] That’s a Wayne’s World quote!

JF: You’re a pretty plain vanilla.

EW: Basic white boy.

Words and photos by: Si Jia Wen

[sentrava]

Artist Spotlight: Danish Painter Stine Tranekjær

Danish artist Stine Tranekjær’s main artistic concern lies in understanding the philosophical paradox of “right and wrong.” Stine explores the opposites through color, and light experiments, short statements, and riddles. There was a time when Stine wanted to study law to understand how the society regulates itself. What is Law if not a written justification of how the society distinguishes rightness or wrongness of a certain act? Stine says: “the idiomatic concept of right and wrong is a very fruitful concept to work around as an artist.” Art has no limits and is a space where one can create their own rules; Stine’s art is a point of entry for an age-old question.

We spoke with Danish painter Stine Tranekjær to find out more about her inspiration and work.

When and how did you begin working as an artist?



I once read an interview with Diana Vreeland where she was quoted as saying “all artists are born in bias.” I guess an artist is what you become when you question the world and your curiosity is not satisfied by common knowledge, “facts” or science. At least that’s what happened to me; I can’t remember it being otherwise.

    You are mainly concerned with the difference between the right and wrong. What have you discovered during your artistic journey?

When I was a kid, I dreamt of studying law. I was baffled by the tremendous amount of laws that existed and saw the law as some sort of matrix that held the heavens and kept our world from collapsing. I wanted to learn it to understand the world. As I grew older, I became aware that a given law is nothing but a written reflection of the society it governs. If the law is bad society becomes bad, and if society is bad the law becomes bad. Of course not instantly, but like a slow dance over time.

  My interest in the space between right and wrong grew. I discovered that the idiomatic concept of right and wrong is a very fruitful concept to work around as an artist because it is inherent in every culture and is very real to all humans. Many people have strong and normative opinions about rightness and wrongness, and the same people often see the two terms as direct opposites. These people often bring up their children to distinguish in the same way, and to deem their own (and other peoples) actions either right or wrong in their reflection. From a phenomenological or artistic point of view, things can be perfectly right and wrong at the same time. If you start seeing the world this way, the distance between right and wrong can become very small.

I personally really like the idea of the phenomenological term ”lifeworld:” a term used to describe the individual’s own perception of his/her life. A lifeworld can be partly shared with other individuals, but seen as a whole, the individual’s own lifeworld is solely governed by subjective perception. In my view humans could learn a lot from honoring the subjective position and sort of “agree to disagree.” What is right from your side does not need to be right from mine. So to answer the question: in my personal view, nothing’s ever utterly right or utterly wrong.

    Your website says “Welcome to the secret site of Stine Tranekjær.” What’s so secretive about your work and where did your interest towards unknown arise from?

When I built the site years ago, I felt that I was putting a paper boat or a fragile bottled message into the endless waves. I thought that my site would have been almost impossible to find in those waves and most visitors would have been random guests. So I found an appropriate name: “the secret site.”

I do like things that need to be explored. I like when things add up and make sense, but since I always have many questions, that sense seldom occurs quickly or easily.

    You conduct experiments on light and color theory through your art. Can you tell us about these theories and specifically about your project “Color Experiment?”



Color is a funny thing because most of us have a very direct response to it, although it does not carry objective messages. Colors are more like smells, either you like a given color or not, and it can be hard to describe why or what you like it. I like some tones of yellow very much, but I have no idea why. I lack the language to describe my emotions towards color, or maybe I just lack the direct connection to the memories that predisposed my likes and dislikes. Turquoise, for instance: I have problems with turquoise. I rarely use this color and I own no turquoise objects or clothes, but don’t know why.

On the other hand, it is interesting that different cultures have different systems of colors. A system that has dominated continental Europe comes from the German painter and writer Johannes Itten’s “Wheel of Contrasts.” The Itten Wheel of Contrasts is a color theory that defines and identifies strategies for successful color combinations. The theory itself is a rigid system of hue, intensity and light or darkness. Since Itten’s theories have been used quite a lot by designers, artists, and architects, we are very exposed to his ideas and his combinations seem familiar and maybe even appealing to many.

My “Color Experiment” evolves around Itten’s color wheel, and in some ways, this piece is an experiment of perception, or maybe rather possibilities for leading perception astray.

Back when I made “Color Experiment,” I was listening to an audio recording of Jean Baudrillard giving a lecture at Wellek Library at the University of California in 1999 on Youtube. Baudrillard talks about what he calls “The Murder Of The Real.” Reality is set up against virtuality and Baudrillard discusses the end of reversibility: “nothing is ever identical to itself” and ”nothing moves any longer from cause to effect.”

    From Baudrillard’s lecture, I became interested in his concepts of simulation and simulacrum, and this question: “can wrong become right, if alternated and repeated to an adequate extent?” formed in my mind. I questioned if simulacrum might have the capacity to take over the world. Consequently, I made a color experiment of seven mega-prints. Each is printed in a duo-color combination of two rectangular shapes that don’t overlap but accurately meet on the exact mid of the paper, building a striking contrast of the colors in the rectangular shapes. 

The colors for the seven combinations are all selected for their closeness to the Johannes Itten’s complementary contrast. The size of the prints is chosen so that the print itself might bring reference to the body mass of the viewer in order for the prints to validate themselves and their presence. Possibly the full image of the seven prints may consolidate a sense of “complementary contrast” but in fact, none of the seven contrasts alone resemble a valid complementary contrast.

As an example, the red/green center contrast of the experiment is burdened from vast amounts of yellow on both the red and the green. One of the two colors should have tilted in a more cold direction to fulfil the complementary contrast. What might seem like a display of seven complementary contrasts is, in fact, none at all.

    In Denmark, plants are holy; they are an integral part of living and you hardly find greens that are unwanted. What was the inspiration behind the series named “Unwanted Greens?”



I like your observation about plants being holy in Denmark. I never thought of it in that way, but there might be some truth to it. Plants are something that many Danes cherish and keep in their homes for generations, from seedling to seedling. I guess my own family is a perfect example of this habit.

    My painting “Unwanted Greens” is about plants I had when I lived in Berlin several years ago. When I moved from Copenhagen to Berlin I have brought some seeds and seedlings with me. They grew fast and helped me feel at home in a new city. Maybe they even grew to become holy, as you suggest. When I decided to move back to Copenhagen, they had grown rather luscious and big, but I couldn’t find a way to bring them back, they were too fragile. Strange as it may sound this made me feel sad and guilty because I felt as if I was letting them down. Attachment is a tricky thing. As soon as you attach yourself to people or things or plants, you become vulnerable because you give away mandate to be hurt.

    Your piece “Flexible Artist” brings to mind how many artists are “flexible” to what social media asks them to create, or what galleries are looking for, perhaps leading to a loss of individuality. What do you think about this tendency?


That is a very valid parallel. I think it has always been like that, however, all the way back to Michelangelo. Artists have always been creative in fitting to the trend of the time and the needs of their customers. This is the perpetual dodo’s conundrum of being an artist.




    Do you feel your art is particularly Danish or Scandinavian? And what’s your opinion about current Danish Art scene?


I don’t know a lot about the Danish art scene as a whole and I don’t feel particularly Danish myself, but maybe my art is? It is always interesting to look for traces of culture in works of art. I am sure that due to the fact that I live in Denmark and grew up here, there should be some inherent cultural connotations in my work. The world has sort of exploded lately both in terms of the Internet, war, migration, and tourism. On many levels, we all live in a state of emergency these days, as formulated by the philosopher Giorgio Agamben in his “Homo Sacer” project.

Etymologically, the word “nation” derives from the Latin “nasci” meaning ”to be born”. Thus, a nation-state is a state, where the way of obtaining civil rights is by being born in it. Maybe it’s time for us to start questioning the quality of this nationalist dogma. I believe, we, the human race, could greatly benefit from abandoning our ideas of nation-states and instead begin viewing each other first and foremost as individual human beings.

    Where can people find or buy your art, if possible?


My silkscreen works can be bought at Limited Works in Copenhagen. Monotypes, drawings and old works can be acquired from me, subjected to availability. Studio visitors are very welcome!

    See more of Stine Tranekjær’s work.

Artist Spotlight: Danish Painter Stine Tranekjær published first on https://medium.com/@OCEANDREAMCHARTERS

[tinymixtapes]

Interview: Mary Lattimore

“Lost Lake” could be the title of a Mary Lattimore song, but it’s actually the name of a Denver dive bar in which we met. It’s a sharp contrast to her music: more than a little dingy and situated right on Colfax Avenue, a one-time highway that Playboy allegedly called “the longest, wickedest street in America.” Not that you could tell once Mary started playing; her set, drawn in equal measure from the just-released Hundreds of Days and her back catalog, was utterly transportive. This isn’t particularly surprising; regardless of where it’s listened to, Mary’s music has always had a sense of place that offers a compelling alternative. Accordingly, our conversation revolved around exploration — sonic, geographical, and the many intersections thereof. --- Do you find the harp limiting at all, either creatively or in terms of how its perceived? Yes and no. It’s limiting as far as being able to transport it; stairs and taking it places to play. Otherwise, I can fit into a lot of situations, and people that ask me to collaborate usually know that. They don’t expect me to play just ethereal all the time. Sometimes you have to prove yourself, and I think I’ve proven so far that I can take it to a versatile place. I saw that episode of Against the Clock that you did with FACT, which was a bit of a stylistic departure for that series. I haven’t watched it yet! Every one that I’d seen, they were using Ableton and stuff, or just using their computer to record. My computer setup is just GarageBand, you know [laughs]. I do record myself, but I’m not an expert by any means. Does performing solo come naturally to you, or do you prefer an orchestra or band context? It does at this point, because I’ve just done it a lot. I don’t really have any preference at all; I just like playing the harp. I like being able to do everything — I went to school for classical music, I like being able to play in an orchestra, I like being able to play in a rock band, noise music, as a duo. I just like messing around and hearing what happens. Do you feel any sense of ambassadorship bringing the harp to listeners and spaces that might not be familiar with it? I love it. I prefer to play in places like this, where people say “oh, we’ve never had a harp here before.” When I played in Las Vegas, I was really nervous about it because I’d never played there before. I played in this bar with a good number of people, but the promoter told me that it was the quietest it had even been in that venue. People were really listening intently, and it’s cool to get quiet and have the audience be right there with you. That’s the beauty of playing bars like this; it’s a challenge to see if you can connect with people. Do you have an idea of where new listeners tend to get their preconceived notions of harp music from? Every single day, I get compared to Joanna Newsom, I guess because we’re both women and we both play the harp. I think the expectation is that I’m gonna be like a folk singer, which isn’t really my style. On Gilmore Girls, there’s a harpist in the lobby or something. Angels play them when cartoon characters die. Playing in this kind of world, Joanna is the main one that I get; I like her and I’m in really good company, but I do think it’s kind of a lazy comparison. I imagine it’s odd to be the first artist of x or y genre that catches on outside of those circles, but probably even stranger when the audience has exactly one point of reference. Right, or like… weddings. On Gilmore Girls, there’s a harpist in the lobby or something. Angels play them when cartoon characters die. Playing in this kind of world, Joanna is the main one that I get; I like her and I’m in really good company, but I do think it’s kind of a lazy comparison. One of my goals is to kind of normalize the harp, you know? It can be like a piano or a guitar sound, or it can be a noisier thing. Whenever I write parts for records with bands, I try and think of a lyric to play throughout or write like a guitar would. Everything doesn’t have to be all harp-y, with glissandos and fantasia or whatever [laughs]. You were talking about the difficulties of transporting the harp itself — were you to go to Europe, say, would you be able to take it with you? I bought a second harp, which lives in Europe. I won this fellowship in 2014 that came with some money, and I had to just nip it in the bud. I figured it would be like a savings account, that if I ran out of money later, I could just sell it. I just got too nervous to keep asking harpists if I could rent their harp in Europe and shove it in the back of a van and worry about every single scratch on it or the temperature. Someone else’s instrument is so precious to them, so for my own peace of mind, I had to just buy it. It lives in Prague, so whenever I go to Europe, I can see my second baby [laughs]. Do you generally write your songs start-to-finish as relatively discrete compositions, or are they culled from longer sessions? I usually just sit down and improvise until I come up with something that I like. I’ll take that and make a layer of it, then a layer on top of that, and so on, so it’s kind of like structured improvisation. I’ll either start out with a loop of weird sounds that I like and fuck around with that and add layers on top, or I’ll start out with a small melody and add a layer of bass notes or something warped underneath the melody line. It’s pretty much all one take at a time, since I don’t really know how to edit. I’ll record something, and then if I don’t like it, I’ll delete the whole thing. It seems like that would translate well to live performance, in terms of the piece staying true to how it was created. Exactly, yeah. I think it’s cool to have those surprises since you never know what’s gonna blossom out of it, but you start out in the key of D Major or whatever as a touchstone, so you have the safety of that key and some small melody that lets you take it to a different zone. With Ableton or whatever, I guess it’s a little bit of willful ignorance. I use this Line 6 pedal that every guitar player is over by now, but even if it’s not that cool anymore, it’s like another instrument to me, and I know how to use it backwards and forwards. I like working with a little bit of constraint, being a little bit dumb and being crafty to get my way out of something if I get stuck. Given the emphasis on improvisation in both composition and performance of your work, what do you view as the purpose of an album? Just establishing a permanent reference point for the work? You got it [laughs]. Records are like souvenirs, a little bit, of a time. A diary-style souvenir of a place and time. It just immortalizes the situation. It’s a little bit narcissistic, I guess, to be selling people your diary. The point of it is to mark the time, but also to try and connect with human beings. Having a wordless conversation with people that might find a spark of connection in there. If you don’t mind me asking, do you find that your livelihood as a musician is especially dependent on one of albums, commissions, or tours in particular, or is it a balance of all three? I’m hustling all the time, so touring is just another part of that. I do a lot of session work. I like momentum, I get paid through session work and playing shows. Record sales… I don’t really know what to say about that. I love records, I worked at record stores for years and years, and there’s something about albums that’s a complete thought. All the work that goes into a record — the artwork, the mixing, and mastering — it’s like a book. You wouldn’t want to just read one chapter of a book and think that’s enough. You can get disconnected from the fact that a human being made it with a specific intention. That’s what art is. I like working with a little bit of constraint, being a little bit dumb and being crafty to get my way out of something if I get stuck. Speaking of wordless conversation, I understand how a melody could be said to have narrative qualities; with regards to song titles, do you view them as something more akin to writing prompts or as a quick note about your own experience or interpretation? That’s like an indulgence for me, jotting down where I’m coming from. But people can take it to the wrong place; you don’t have to think about this specific convenience store by the ocean. You can take it to wherever you want, though. I read that this album was recorded at the Headlands Center. Can you describe that scene a bit? I just got a residency, so I was there for a couple months. I had a studio in this big redwood barn right near a lighthouse. They cook for you and give you a big, beautiful Victorian house to live in… there’s barely any cell phone reception, so you just have to buckle down and make your work. You take in the landscape too, which totally infuses the music. It’s such a gorgeous place, with no real worries except for mountain lions, I guess [laughs]. There are like 14 different people at a time, but they’re visual artists, writers, all different disciplines. You can do whatever you want to there, there’s no strings attached. I just used it to write a record pretty straightforward, but some people just use it as a break from life. I saw an older interview of yours where you said that a lot of your collaborations had come about through friends. How would you compare Philadelphia and L.A. in terms of fostering that sort of creative community? In Philly, I definitely had a kind of scene where it was really social playing, with everybody supporting each other and stuff. I just made the move to L.A. about a year ago, really intentionally because I wanted to move forward with music, getting involved with film scoring and things like that. Getting really professional about session work. There’s money to be made with art there, and it’s not so much social, like “I respect what you’re doing, let’s work together.” You’re there to follow the ambition; it’s dog-eat-dog a little bit. Do you think that creative work necessitates a trade-off between social and professional functions? I guess it all depends on the city. The rent, how affordable the place is. You can be much more social about it if you’re living in a cheaper city where you don’t have to hustle all the time. I’m doing a lot of work in L.A., but there are so many people who have moved there that were friends of mine from all over the place, so now we’re collaborating a ton as well. It feels great. I never want to have a stupid office job ever again in my life, so I’ll totally supplement my playing for fun with playing for, like, a commercial [laughs]. I don’t consider it selling out when it can enable my playing for fun and getting experimental or whatever. I have a ton of respect for artists who are working totally outside that framework, but it seems like the necessary compromise of that approach is that you can’t stop working at any point. Are you able to take vacations or maintain some semblance of a regular schedule? I love to tour, and I consider it really fun. It’s a way that I get to see all my friends from across the country and hang out with them. It feels like a vacation, because I’m on my own terms and in my own car; I can eat at nice restaurants, and if I’m making money, I can hang out a lot. I’m lucky, because I don’t have to support a band or have anyone depending on me. I like going onto Atlas Obscura, which is this website that can locate weird, kitschy places around you. I do a weird kind of tourism between dates. I’m going to Lawrence next, but I don’t have to be there until Tuesday. I wanna go to the Clutter house — you know that book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote? It’s fascinating, it’s about the murder of a family, which was real, and Truman Capote befriended the murderers. I guess you can see the farmhouse where it happened. Do you find yourself drawing influence from across different forms of media often? I know that you re-scored a silent film once. Yeah, definitely. I’ve written a couple songs that were for books or authors — one of the songs on the new record was written the day that Denis Johnson died, the author of Jesus’ Son. Making music is a way of processing things that happen in the world. I always say it’s like exorcism a little bit: getting out feelings or navigating things that are happening. I like thinking about writing and turning that into music, trying to bring a vibe from one work to another. http://j.mp/2Lui5mI

[riffrelevant]

(By Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker, Lead Journalist/Writer, RiffRelevant.com)

Musician Dan Lorenzo (guitarist) was a highly integral component to many of my own earlier, formative music years. His song writing abilities and guitar playing talent were the creative catalyst for the legendary Eighties power metal / thrash band Hades. In that band he helped pioneer the music and sound of the East Coast’s own take on underground music.

Active for over twenty years, Hades released six revered official albums and myriad singles and splits, while also being included on numerous compilations. The band holds a highly revered place in the heads and hearts of metal lovers both old and new to this very day. From Hades, Dan’s creative Jones led to the formation of the amazing Non-Fiction, a band that was quite ahead of its time in my opinion.

Non-Fiction‘s early Nineties existence resulted in three incredible, forward thinking studio releases (1991’s Preface, 1992’s In The Know and 1996’s It’s A Wonderful Lie…). The band’s take on darker progressive metal registered quite well with listeners and fans. It was another so-called feather in the cap for the artistry that Dan Lorenzo encapsulates.

Lorenzo In NON-FICTION

During the early to mid 2000’s, Dan worked as a solo artist and released three phenomenal full-length albums and one EP. On these, he explored a vast swath of differing styles of music and blurred the lines for those obsessed with genre-labeling. Before that decade was over, Lorenzo was part of The Cursed alongside fellow New Jersey staple, Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth (Overkill). Their one and only album to date thus far, 2007’s Room Full Of Sinners, was another landmark where Dan’s creative prowess was displayed.

Now it is 2017 of course and recently, news broke about a new project that Dan Lorenzo is part of. From far out of left field comes the revelation of Vessel Of Light, Dan’s new musical partnership with Nathan “Opposition” Jochum of Ancient VVisdom. As unlikely a pairing that anyone could imagine, Vessel Of Light‘s debut single “Meant To Be” (streaming below) is a somber descent into heavy Doom music with psychedelic, sludge and atmospheric nuances. The duo’s self-titled debut EP will be released through Argonauta Records on November 3rd and promises to be one of the year’s most intriguing offerings.

So, as a long, long time fan and appreciator of all that is Dan Lorenzo musically, I was recently given the opportunity to speak with him. It goes without saying that I jumped into such an exchange without hesitation for Dan really is a major component within several musical outlets that have (and do) mean so much to me. Without further ado, let’s get to the goods that got us here, shall we? It is my pleasure to present you….

The Riff Relevant Interview With Dan Lorenzo!

Pat Riot – Vessel Of Light. Your new project with Nathan Opposition..how did this project come about? You two seem an unlikely pairing as you all are coming from much different musical backgrounds (outside looking in anyway) so who did what, or brought what to the table, in VOL?

Dan – Back in December I was in Austin, Texas. Before I went, my wife was listening to a lot of stoner rock. Neither my wife nor I drink or smoke, but we both like Sabbath-y types of riffs. I Googled “Austin stoner rock” and came upon the video “The Opposition” by the band Ancient VVisdom. I had never heard of them and I rarely like “new” music. At first I was taken aback by the lyrics. I go to church and I have a Jesus tattoo and they were singing Satanic lyrics. I literally watched this video 10-15 times over the next two days. I consider “The Opposition” to be one of the top 20 greatest songs of all-time. I tried to figure out what label Ancient VVisdom were on or a contact address, but I couldn’t find anything. I’m not on Facebook. Eventually I found an email and I wrote saying how much I loved their song and Nathan Opposition wrote me back. I mentioned them in a NJ magazine I write for called Steppin’ Out. I mailed Nathan a copy of the magazine and a HADES and THE CURSED CDs. We spoke on the phone and hit it off. Then one day I got an email from Nathan about the new project he and I were starting! I had no idea what he was talking about as this was never discussed (laughs). I couldn’t say “no” to his idea though. I have hundreds of riffs and I started mailing Nathan some of them.

Pat Riot – What can music fans and listeners expect from the debut album? Do you think it will appeal to your own fans as well as those of Nathan’s?

Dan – Do I  have any fans? (laughs) Yeah, if people liked my riffs in Non-Fiction and The Cursed, they will be happy. Nathan’s fans will love it too.

Pat Riot – How did the label deal with Argonauta Records materialize? Can we expect to see VOL play some live gigs at any point?

Dan – I was about to leave for a vacation in Hawaii. Right before I left I was trying to find a doom label and I came across Argonauta. I sent an MP3 to Brian Slagel [Metal Blade] and Argonauta and nobody else. I was at the airport suffering through a United Airlines 12 hour delay and Argonauta wrote me that they were interested in signing us. Gero and I sent a few e-mails back and forth and that was it. As far as live gigs before we got signed I said “No way”…now I want to do some shows.  Pat Riot – In the mid-2000s you independently released a string of solo albums (3 full lengths/1 EP)..how were those received in your opinion? As both a solo artist and member of some major legacy-type acts / bands, do you have a preference for one over the other (i.e. solo vs. member of band) and if so, why?

Dan – They are both fun. My whole thing is I despise repetition. My solo stuff was a way to get 30 songs out in 13 months without having more than a couple of rehearsals. Nathan and I only had two rehearsals and then we spent a whopping seven hours in the recording studio recording 6 Vessel Of Light songs. Five days later we had a record deal. That kind of spontaneity is incredibly appealing to me. How were my solo CDs received? With contempt! (laughs) No, the “right” people loved my solo work. Bobby Blitz, Peter [Fletcher, guitarist] from Pigmy Love Circus. Cool people with good taste! (I’ll definitely take THAT as a compliment, ha! – Pat)

Pat Riot – Speaking of “legacy acts”..Hades. This year makes 35 years since the “Deliver Us From Evil” single surfaced, where it all started for Hades. Looking back, what’s your take away from it now, knowing what place Hades holds in the hearts of so many metal fans?

Dan – Oh wow! That was 35 years ago. Damn. It’s nice honestly. Dark Symphonies out of Massachusetts is re-releasing our first two CDs with Demos never released on CD and 20 page booklets inside. Hades was my first love so it will always be special to me.

Pat Riot – Hades’ last studio LP was 2001’s “DamNation” and while I know you are just one member of Hades, has there ever been any serious discussion of a reunion or new record? Dan – Nope. It’s over. I’m still friendly with the guys though and Jimmy Schulman might play bass for VOL live. Pat Riot – Dan, what was the catalyst event be it band, album, concert, etc. that ignited your interest in music as a youth? Who would you cite as some of your primary influences and what did you yourself learn or pick up from them? 

Dan – Ace Frehley of Kiss and Joe Perry of Aerosmith. I play nothing like Joe. My few solos are very Ace-like.

Pat Riot – Now, let’s hit upon 2 absolute favorites of mine: First..Non-Fiction. To me, NF was quite progressive in style and really ahead of its time I believe. What fueled the formation of Non-Fiction?

Dan – Trying to be the exact opposite of Hades. Non-Fiction were spontaneous. We took risks. I would write a riff in the dressing room before the show and then we might use that riff as the opener for that night. So much fun. We rarely rehearsed and when we did it was to write new songs. I fucking loved being in Non-Fiction. It was way more fun and way more “me” than Hades was. Pat Riot – And what ultimately led to the demise of Non-Fiction? I learned something in researching for our exchange here that I did not know, that a S/T EP was issued featuring Dan Nastasi (of Mucky Pup, whom I love) on vocals.

Dan – We came home from our 1993 European tour with Overkill and Savatage and things seemed to be moving backwards. Plus I fell in love with a girl named Gina. I was so poor that one day I couldn’t find a quarter for a bagel. I was so bummed. I knew I needed to get a job and I knew that would be the end of Non-Fiction. After that Nastasi and I reunited the original Non-Fiction line-up and called it #9. We got a deal with SPV. We were starting to record and Nastasi got a solo deal and his manager put the kabosh on #9. There is one rough mix from those recordings on my website. The song is called The Story Goes. #9 were the shit. So fucking bad ass. 

#gallery-0-3 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-3 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-3 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-3 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

THE CURSED

The Cursed ‘Room Full Of Sinners’

Pat Riot – The Cursed. ‘Room Full Of Sinners’ is such a genre-diverse record..how did that project come to be? What kind of feedback have you gotten over the years since that LP was released? 

Dan – Well Blitz was a fan of my first solo cd and we always hit it off. It was weird because I’m not a huge fan of Overkill, but when he started writing to my riffs I realized how incredibly talented Blitz actually is. I think a lot of people loved our CD together, but I think Bobby felt a lit bit uncomfortable promoting it because at that time Overkill was starting a resurgence. All thanks to me getting Ron Lipnicki in the band! ( laughs).Pat Riot – I interviewed Blitz earlier this year and specifically asked about a possible 2nd LP from The Cursed ever happening. He lovingly passed the buck by saying “never say never” but also made clear it was not really his call. What say YOU? Dan – I would have done one, but like I said, Blitz…he didn’t even want me to pay to have a video done for The Cursed, so I’m not going to spend my time writing/rehearsing and recording something I can’t even promote when it’s done. We have a 4 song demo we recorded for The Cursed before we did Room Full Of Sinners. My wife’s favorite song by The Cursed is Lucifiction on that demo. It’s never been released. I would love for Blitz to tell me he wants to re -release the whole thing and include a new song or two. I think we write very well together. (For the record, literally, my fave is “Native Tongue”. – Pat)Pat Riot – OK, Dan..had you not been in Hades, Non-Fiction, The Cursed, Vessel Of Light, etc…what band throughout all of Rock / Metal History would you have liked to been in and why? 

Dan – I’d love to take Malcolm’s spot with Bon Scott era AC/DC or maybe The Plasmatics guitarist during A Coup De’ Etat.

Pat Riot – Outside of music, what type of things do you enjoy doing in your “normal, every day life” i.e. hobbies, travel, etc.?

Dan – I play pick-up basketball 4 days a week during the summer. Gina and I have been happily married twenty years and we love to travel. Pat Riot  – I have a tradition of ending interviews with the subject having the final say. Anything you’d like to say, share, state for the record, rant, what have you, this is all you:

Dan – I really wish people would stop smoking cigarettes. It’s expensive, ages you and is disgusting!

There you go, people…Be like Dan and do your smoking on the frets of a guitar! I want to wind down here be saying what a pleasure it was speaking with Dan Lorenzo, a musician whose music via multiple projects has been a staple of my own musical fanaticism for years. Thank you, Dan!

Now, we stand at the precipice of a whole new era of music from Dan via the upcoming Vessel Of Light S/T release (via Argonauta Records Nov. 3rd). My own review of that is coming soon but I’ll go on the record now saying it is going to surprise and astound listeners, and fans of Dan’s both. To keep up with all things Dan Lorenzo, visit his website and Instagram, along with Vessel Of Light’s Facebook page (linked below).

DanLorenzo.net   /   Dan Lozenzo on Instagram Vessel Of Light’s Facebook page.

Argonauta Records website.

  The DAN LORENZO (Vessel Of Light, Hades, Non-Fiction, Etc.) Interview (By Pat 'Riot' Whitaker, Lead Journalist/Writer, RiffRelevant.com) Musician Dan Lorenzo (guitarist) was a highly integral component to many of my own earlier, formative music years.

[promomagazine]

Christopher Makos: The Artist’s Photographer

By:  Eduardo Gion Espejo-Saavedra

Legendary photographer of the eighties New York scene, Christopher Makos trained with masters Andrew Warhol and Man Ray. His photographs, as well as his Polaroids, have an inner vision and a particular sense. His works are exhibited worldwide at the best art galleries. He has become a master, the best among the best.  

In this exclusive interview, a version of which first appeared in the pages of the 12th issue of ODDA Magazine, Makos opens his heart in a unique interview.

Q: Do you remember your interests as a child growing up in California?

A: I was born in Lowell, Massachusetts and I lived there when I was a child until I was thirteen, and then I moved with my mom to Southern Eastern California. I spent my formative years in California, as a young man person moving from boyhood to manhood. That was exciting, and then going to high school and getting a car, because in Los Angeles you have to have a car. I remember first discovering my sexuality in Los Angeles too, that was a very confusing time for me. I loved being in the warm weather though, and having a car and driving to Hollywood. This was also the first time that I smoked marijuana. After I graduated from high school, the first thing I wanted to do was leave and go back East. Somehow I didn’t feel like I was a Californian, so I ended up going to New York City and that’s where I met Andy Warhol and started getting into the New York art scene.

Q: How did your interest in photography start?

A: I remember I was dating the actor Anthony Perkins and for my birthday he gave me a camera and that’s basically how I started. My first paid and published pictures came from Jan Wenner at Rolling Stone Magazine.

Q: There was any defining moment when you realized that your passion for photography could become a job to earn your living?

A: I always realized that if I wanted to take pictures, I had to make money out of it. It was expensive at the time, because you had to buy film and get it developed. Today, it is very different. If you want to be a photographer it is much simpler, because everything is digital. You can get a cheap camera, take pictures and process them at home on a computer. My motivation to be a photographer was much deeper than it is for most young people today. I realized that I had to figure out how to make money doing it, because if I couldn’t make money doing it, I couldn’t be a photographer.

Q: I’d say that your photographic work is somehow a visual manifesto of a specific time. When you take a picture, would you say that you want to document a specific moment or do you believe that every picture is always a lie or at least, a way of beautifying reality?

A: My pictures are more about being there in the moment and they don’t really lie, they are telling my truth at that moment. Pictures do lie of course, especially when you look at pictures in today’s world because people manufacture things and they change things and all that, but all of my pictures tell my own story. My pictures are more about a sort of dialogue that I am having with myself and the outside world around me. They are an auto-biography of my life: what I am doing, where I have been, how I live my life, who I meet and the people who I surrounded myself with.

Q: Which artists or photographers do you identify with, in the way they approach and understand photography?

A: I would say I identify more with photographers of the past like Man Ray, because not only did he take pictures, but he also enjoyed painting and drawing. I like artists and photographers that use the camera as a vehicle to express themselves in all kinds of different ways and not just necessarily through photography and social media as it is today. There are some contemporary photographers I love too, like what Paul Solberg does, he is the other half of The Hilton Brothers.

Q: One of my favorites is your portrait of Man Ray. Many people mistakenly claim that you were his apprentice, when in fact your time together was brief. Was there any conversation or intervention with Man Ray that had an impact on the way you see your life and work?

A: When I describe all of that and I talk to people, they say “Oh, you studied with Man Ray?”. Yes… well, I mean some people need four years to study, they think about a formal education at school… For me, I met someone for a few hours or 24 hours and I can learn a lot because I know how to absorb information. It is the same when I say that I studied architecture in Paris, I mean I walked around and looked at all the buildings. You don’t need to go to school to study something, you could come to New York City for one week and study the city, and look at all the buildings and people. You can get so much more from that real experience than you can by only looking at a book or having someone talk to you about it.

Q: What motivated you and Paul Solberg to start working together as the artistic duo The Hilton Brothers?

A: We both have the same mindset. I have been collaborating with other people my entire life; whether Andy Warhol or Calvin Klein, etc. When you are a writer you have to do it completely by yourself, you have to sit alone and write or type. For me, I was looking to find someone that speaks the same language as me, then explore that relationship and see how far we can go with our dialogue. Paul is one of those people that is easy to be around, easy to travel with, is good for bouncing ideas off and working together. Also the most interesting part of a collaboration for most people is the end result. While I am always proud of the end result, what I really enjoy is the process of creating. It is not about the destination, is about the journey. For me the journey to getting to the end is the most interesting part of all of this.

Q: I know that you are close to Calvin Klein. I’d like to ask you if you think that in the past there was a more genuine relation between the art world and the fashion world. I have the feeling that the collaborations between fashion and art today are more about corporate marketing than an honest exchange of creativity.

A: Yes, for sure. All the collaborations that you see today with these big companies, they are very over studied. I don’t want to criticize and say that they are not real or genuine, because I think once the collaboration begins, then they are real. But sometimes when you have so much money involved, it often corrupts the creative process… just because you have two big names and money, doesn’t mean it’s going to be a success. Maybe the process for them was really great but they have to be aware that the final result may not be what they hoped for. Perhaps in the past, collaborations between figures in the art world and fashion world were more fun and real. My collaborations were not related to money or fame. I have to know the people I do collaborations with personally. Now for example, fashion brands need to be mixed with artists and music-rappers.

Q: You taught Andy how to use his camera. What would you say is the most valuable thing you learned from him over the 10 years you both were together?

A: The thing I learnt most from Andy is how to run a business. It was such a mutual exchange… I wouldn’t say opposite attract though. If you both do the same thing, you are not learning anything new. Andy was a very famous painter and I was an emerging photographer. It was important for me to be involved in the world of art. I learnt a lot from him and I he learned from me . He travelled a lot and I did too, so we ended up travelling together all the time.

Q: You were present in many events that happened in The Factory. However, you are not considered a Warhol acolyte or a member of The Factory. Could you please explain this point?

A: It was because I met Andy separately. I had a genuine friendship with Andy. I didn’t pursue his friendship. I met Andy in a Whitney Museum exhibition and he asked me to go to Kansas City, later we met in his studio ,and this is how we started collaborating. We were both very lucky to be friends and to collaborate together.

Q: Personalities like Lou Reed, John Cale, David Bowie or Debbie Harry have dedicated songs to Andy. As Andy’s close friend, what characteristicsdo you think make him interesting, even today?

A: Andy’s work was uniquely American. Many artists from the last century and from 1950s, or even before, were inspired by Europe. They looked at Europe, for their reference point. It was European art and architecture, etc., but Warhol and so many artists like Roy Lichtenstein looked around for inspiration in America… Andy’s references were Elvis Presley, the electric chair, the Coca Cola bottle, the Campbell’s soup cans. These things were so uniquely attributed to the American iconography, and their ubiquitous presence represented American power and influence around the world.

Q: What do you think about people being so obsessed with celebrity culture? How would you say the perception of fame has changed since the 70’s? I’d dare to say that nowadays, it is unusual to find authenticity in any celebrity.

A: It is sad to be obsessed celebrity. People have to stop putting people on such a pedestal. There’s an artificial world created by the managers as a means for making money. Actually, there’s no privacy. People are very accessible in NY, but in LA it is different… distance keep you separate there, while in NY you can approach people very easily at the same level and find out that most are authentic. NY is a big equalizer, LA is not quite the same. Consistency is what will make you famous. Just be who you are.

Q: Do you think that the underground scene still exists?

A: No. To have an underground you have to have situations that are kind of funky or poor or places where you have to have some kind of a movement. All major cities are rich now, there are no poor cities anymore, Madrid is a rich city, Barcelona is a rich city… you have to have poor neighborhoods where artists can go and have a club because onl those places are inexpensive to have a club. The only place maybe you can have an underground is on Internet, where anyone can see them, there people can get together, and the neighborhood on the Internet is free.