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VICKI WHICKER PHOTO EXHIBITION 10.4.13

October 20, 2013, 9:48 am
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From Hollywood scenester/successful LA Gear shoe designer to rural East Coast artist, in Vicki Whicker's own words: "'Found a farm on Facebook. 'Bought it sight unseen. Moved from L.A. to Central NY. Dunga Brook, 1820's, one acre, she needs a face lift. This is that story, these are the characters involved, via iPhone pics."

“iPhoneography as a mobile method for making art and as a creative movement was exploding around the world while I was stalking the flora and fauna of my new home. Coming from LA, I was in a paradise- the lush trees, the long country roads lined with Queen Anne’s Lace big as pie plates, the crimson and gold fall leaves, those first pristine snow flakes. The more I shot, the more I saw; the more I saw, the more I wanted to see…by the time my house was done 6 months had passed and I had produced over 20,000 images…through the lens of my iPhone I fell completely in love with central New York.”

What the artist omitted of her synopsis: she got REALLY good, REALLY fast in her photography, snapshots to fine art in the space of a year, enough to warrant well-deserved exhibitions in her new locale, from her "Dunga Brook Diary: a year of seeing differently" Cherry Valley NY debut to her most recent exhibit in Hollywood CA 10.4.13. 

I suggested to my travel companions Evita and Stephanie that this showing might be more reminiscent of a Manhattan-type private exhibition in some tony apartment which proved correct prognostication. The artist's BFF Bobbie Beeman, herself a pro photographer, instigated the show at the Rubix Complex, Hollywood, replete with NY-styled doorman, copious but nicely helpful security, photos installed upstairs and down, champagne and canapes galore, and a live set by musician Johnny Elkins.

Vicki noted to the press “Sometimes I have misgivings about my decision when it’s just me, the dogs and the pellet stove during an ice storm. But most of the time the place just gets more magical each day.” To us she rhapsodized the joy of getting up and taking photos all day long, rhapsodized like the true artist she remains. 

Below, NY-style art show ambience in Hollywood, and a macro-close up of Whicker's.


 The artist Vicki Whicker and rock and roll couturier Evita Corby, below.
 Above, the Four Graces, friends of the artist, left to right: Lorraine Cole, Maria Schaeffer, Laura Wachal and Bambi Conway (musician, once bassist for Paisley Underground all-femme allstars The Pandoras.) 

Below: a picture of happiness-- I purchased Whicker's "Tim's House" installed against the actual paisley of our upstairs bathroom, right in the sunlight (usually anathema to fine art) to set off its iridescent colors printed on metal, hence immune.
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ROAN ANTELOPES

October 26, 2013, 5:41 pm
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Ink wash printed on textured paper, circa the 1980s by me from a photo in a library book. I've always drawn from photographs since I was three years old, then I took the photos myself for same having discovered copyright laws at age twelve, then the photographs took over professionally since they're superior quality to my fine art. So... 'just drawing for fun occasionally.
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CS&N's THIRD GIG EVER, and with Y, 1969

October 26, 2013, 6:23 pm
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At Woodstock, Stephen Stills told the audience: "This is the second time we've ever played in front of people, man! And we're scared shitless!" My very long-lens telephoto pic is from the very next gig... Crosby, Stills and Nash (with future "and Young" sitting in) at the Greek Theatre, Hollywood CA, 1969, opening for Joni Mitchell.

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R.I.P. LOU REED

October 28, 2013, 9:07 am
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We'll phrase in the hypothetical and make it fiction. They were Los Angeles college students open to everything the world had to offer in the late 1960s. They prided themselves on their knowledge of music outside the purview of pop culture touchstones, alternative then being known as Underground, and their freewheeling mixed gender adventures, although the latter posed a problem right after the Manson family murders.  The Hotel Del Coronado staff, disturbed at the sight of two hippie-looking gals accompanying one guy pursued them around the premises. Selfsame alleged murderous hippies remembered all the cliches of chase films, split up, ran in separate directions and eluded them. All they had wanted to do was see the famous Del Coronado Hotel, star of "Some Like It Hot" and inspiration for the original illustrations of the Emerald City in the first Wizard of Oz book, in person. So it was not entirely abnormal for them to try psychedelics to augment their spirit of adventuring.

This time was different. According to one, she woke up in Arizona, meaning that all three of them must have completed all the mundane protocols of getting to a major airport hub, purchasing tickets, getting on a commercial airliner and flying to a destination unknown to two of the three. When awakened, she had a baby Rottweiler puppy identified as "Bear" lying atop to her infinite delight, and her girlfriend, the more wholesome looking of the two was yelping at the top of her lungs, "Suck suck sucking on my dingdong...I'm searching for my mainline...you know he couldn't hit it sideways...he aims it at the sailor...who just got in from Carolina...oh no you shouldn't do that...doncha know you'll stain the carpet...whip it on me Jim, whip it on me Jim!" 

Rottweiler puppy cradler's admiration for the more wholesome of the two instantly skyrocketed. She was of course singing choice excerpts from "Sister Ray" by the Velvet Underground, from their 1968 White Light White Heat Lp. This made them all part of a knowing elite of true wild music afficionados, those of the 58,476 original buyers of the first V.U. Lp (according to accounting of their record label Verve, a subsidiary of MGM) and perhaps less for second Lp White Light White Heat.  "Sister Ray" had chordal and rhythmic similarities to Eddie Harris'"Listen Here," an improbable jazz crossover hit of the same era, but there the similarities ended. It was seventeen minutes of pounding, celebratory, improvisational rocknoise showcasing some weird, proto-rap/singsongy, debauched tale of gay heroin users who veered even farther out in their trips than did the commercial airline travellers on acid. 

"Sister Ray" and the canon of the Velvet Underground--ah, the soundtrack of everyone of a certain age's misspent youth. Context is everything in the business of ground-breaking. The Velvets incapsulated the power of minimalism done right, the shock of the new.  Why was Hokusai praised when his "Wave" print is just a cartoon? Why was Chuck Berry praised when he didn't even use a big band? Why was Monet praised when it's just mushyslushy lack of attention to realistic minutiae? Why does the three chord fury of four young musicians of otherwise disparate pedigrees droning about narcotics and deviance with guitars, drums, violas, organ and bass from the mid-1960s still resonate? It just inexplicably does, like the most timeless of all great art.

 "Sister Ray" was composed by John Cale, Maureen Tucker, Sterling Morrison and Lou Reed. This last songwriter's ongoing music career lasted for the next 48 years (as did the classically trained Cale's, and drummer Tucker's. Morrison returned to academia.)  He resigned himself to the acceptance of being a working cult hero with its eventual attendant popularity. He'd found happiness married to avant garde musician Laurie Anderson, but had a liver transplant this last May.  As he wrote in his song Street Hassle "it's called bad luck."Lou Reed died today Oct. 27, 2013.

The following is offered from the nonfictional me, published Feb. 8, 1973, a maelstrom of turgid pretentiousness, which is everything Lou Reed was not. But it did show I cared. 


 


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HAPPY HALLOWE'EN

October 31, 2013, 8:18 am
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C'est moi, c'est moi over 43 years ago...
My real live hair and my undead stare...
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1965 POSTER ART JUVENILIA

October 31, 2013, 6:42 pm
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Juvenilia from my past, parts of a tempera poster I did at school on the subject of what would benefit selfsame school. My thought: having fun to contemporary music. Two sections and the entirety of the 1965 poster. To wax clinical about the drawings with forty-eight years hence of hindsight, the lack of accurate physiognomy is balanced by the sure touch of action poses. I was showing off... Paisley-clad girl at top is doing the Frug.

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RETRO MAKEOVER

November 1, 2013, 10:48 am
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 Above, "Richard Avedon treatment" of my photo of Kizzy Kirk, fearless lead singer of the band Feral Kizzy (LINK.) Thoroughly modern Kizzy with now flaccid microphone below, in the original shot from last year's studio session for Paraphilia Magazine.

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SUNSET STRIP movie

November 8, 2013, 12:48 pm
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What do you want in a movie? If it's verisimilitude, you must have subjective overview for the context, or else it's just another period piece as distant and impersonal as The Napoleonic Wars. If it's a character study, you must accept this as the basis of the filmed entertainment. Sunset Strip should be viewed as a character study companion piece to Almost Famous with far more accurate verisimilitude. Famous is a wondrous pastiche, lotsa entertaining bang for your buck. But Sunset Strip represents the real shit. I know. I was there. And here's why you should take my anonymous word for it. 

When I first saw this year 2000 movie I was astonished that I didn't recognize the name 
of its writer, for I recognized every one of his characters, literally as well as figuratively. The writer obviously was exactly the same age I was, worked in the exact aspects of the entertainment industry that I did, at the exact same time in the early 70's at the exact same spots in Hollywood and knew the exact same people I did (or knew of.) Anna Friel was Genie the Tailor, who did in fact die in an auto accident with several members of British band Fairport Convention. The geeky manager was seemingly an early Geffen-esque clone. The disolute songwriter was a Warren Zevon-alike, while Jared Leto was, dare I say, a completely interchangeable popstar type of the era. My own future husband, actual popstar of that era, lived in the exact same Laurel Canyon mountain aerie depicted in the film (replete with benevolent landlord), while I worked as a music photographer alongside the main protagonist's doppelganger. 

And I did know who he was. He was one of the names you'll recognize on photo credits of classic shots of the era, who now owns a major restaurant here. But he didn't want his name on the writing credits, so I'll respect that. Sunset Strip is a highly entertaining character study that is unbelievably accurate in its depiction of an assortment of characters on the perimeter, or the earliest stages of ascent, of the music scene in Hollywood CA in the early 1970's. It's all true. And we did go out there every night. . .


Above and below, some vintage photos of friends of mine from the same era. 
The scarf-wielder is Risa Hurowitz: then my brain cells screech to a halt.

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TEACHER'S PETS

November 9, 2013, 8:36 am
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Guest photographer- photo (C) 2013 Kurt Ingham. Literally and figuratively, Teacher's Pets. Mr. Ingham's third grade class came as Scottish Deerhounds and Golden Retrievers for this last Halloween...

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BLUES PORTFOLIO, guest photog Virginia Parks Williamson

November 12, 2013, 11:53 am
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 Above, guest photographer Virginia Parks Williamson: David "Honeyboy" Edwards, legendary bluesman who performed with his friend the immeasurably influential guitarist/singer/songwriter Robert Johnson the night the latter was murdered in 1938...
 
The artist Virginia Parks Williamson (first cousin of yours truly) is seen 11.1.13 at a group show in the Julia Dean Gallery, Los Angeles CA next to her own photos installation, and with her daughter Sally Williamson. Alongside the portrait of Edwards are Virginia's shots of Pinetop Perkins, Pat Thomas, Mr. Tater and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, all denizens of her native Memphis/West Tennessee/Mississippi music circuit radius. Thomas remains the only bluesman from this portfolio still amongst the living, so these indeed are important documentations by my extroverted cuz whose photos highlight her strength of an immediate rapport with her subjects. I honored her preference for black and white herein.
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CIRCUS ANIMALS

November 12, 2013, 7:24 pm
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100 mules trekked right past the doorstep of my friends Don and Marijke in Shadow Hills CA commemorating Los Angeles Aqueduct's 100th birthday on Nov. 10th, but look what I found near our digs today! Exotic ungulates! And for those who care about such matters as I do, the circus animals all appeared to be in good health, well fed, muscled even, unstressed and definitely accepting of humans. The zebras were bright-eyed and the camel came right over for his closeup... The 18 hand Percheron (a giant, now rare-ish draft horse breed) needed a bath but horse-people know you never bathe a horse until right before his show appearance, else risk a newly muddied equine. There were American flags aflutter everywhere, but the red and white tent stripes reminded me of the Rising Sun flag of Japan, a great graphic element.


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SUBMISSION

November 18, 2013, 8:36 pm
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CHRISTOPHER MILK quasi-REUNION, 40 years later

November 20, 2013, 7:09 am
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Once upon a time in 1971...
Photo by James Oswald, Christopher Milk circa 1971 in Topanga Canyon, Calif. Left to right, Tres Feltman, John Mendelsohn, unknown rider and equine, Mr. Twister, Kirk Henry, the Donald, unknown dog, Ralph Oswald.

Flash forward to 2012...
Above, Ralph Oswald rocks out on air guitar to the unheard music at the great Christopher Milk quasi-reunion*, April 22, 2012 in Laguna Beach, California. Below, some forty-plus years earlier, Ralph deploys guitar to oblivion a la Pete Townshend in Christopher Milk gig on Janss steps, UCLA (photographer unknown.)
Christopher Milk began in the late 1960s betwixt UCLA chums Ralph and future Rolling Stone/Creem/L.A. Times writer/media darling John Mendelsohn. They shared "house band" status at UCLA with Sparks, and also shared similar convoluted histories of personnel changes, convoluted romantic entanglements of the band's couples, and multiple major label record company releases.

Much of the CMilk story is resurrected here at my Paraphilia
photo feature on pages 16-46 LINK. (One should also check out how Mendelsohn influenced rock posterity by introducing David Bowie to the music of The Stooges, LINK.)

Mr. Twister and John Mendelsohn in Christopher Milk, 1971
(photographer unknown.)Below, my own photo of them circa 1970.

Forty years later reunions can prove bittersweet, but that applied to the circumstances under which Colorado residents Ralph and Anita Oswald found themselves in Southern California (sad, private ones) not the quasi-reunion itself. This cadre of college chums turned rockstars immediately traded witticisms as readily as in times gone by.
Above left to right, Kirk Henry a.k.a. The Kiddo, bassist; Ralph Oswald a.k.a. Surly Ralph, guitarist; and he who remains perennially known as The Dreaded Mr. Twister, singer (and remains my better half.) Photo below, we add Dennis Castanares, (depicted back in the day, center of third photo from top) guitarist, far right.

Above, Rick Snyder (creator of the official Christopher Milk websiteLINKand onetime bassist for kindred spirit weirdo Captain Beefheart) and Dennis Castanares jam and trade trivia. Kirk Henry comments amid the Oswald hospitality at the hotel, below.

Credit Anita Oswald with the means by which the band reunited for this get-together.She created the Facebook Christopher Milk Fan Club as somewhat of a lark for husband Ralph, whereupon it immediately took off with a life of its own with well over 100 members, many of them rather influential British music press.
Above, Dennis Castanares is warmly greeted by hostess Anita Oswald.

Rick Snyder, your humble photojournalist and Kirk Henry.
Photo by Kurt Ingham.

Below, my video snippet in which Rick Snyder and Dennis Castanares tackle Kyu Sakamoto (to the ground) singing "Sukiyaki."


*John and the current Mrs. Mendelsohn remain ensconced in England, rather too far to commute for impromptu social occasions. The Donald, backup singers & dancers, and several drummers: whereabouts unknown...
NOTE: link directly back to http://fastfilm1.blogspot.comif all elements such as photo layouts or videos aren't here.
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MAMA LION LYNN CAREY singer, actress, Pantherinaephile UPDATE

November 21, 2013, 9:16 am
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 This month I photographed singer/actress LYNN CAREY, she of the big-voiced rock, blues, jazz, big band, full-throttled vocal stylings. Daughter of the late actor MacDonald Carey, Lynn initally appeared in good roles within 1960s films like Lord Love A Duck starring Roddy McDowell, then changed career into fulltime rock and roller. Her best known band was Mama Lion with its to this day notorious cover of Lynn suckling a real, live lion cub (photo fourth from the bottom.) Lynn also has reveled in a certain wild child persona, expressed in the second and third photos above. 

Interim vocal work took her to Russia, studio work and assorted jazz ensembles. These days and nights still find Lynn singing her heart out live, recording, appearing in webcasts and acting, for which the two demure shots below were photographed. Beautiful Lynn still has great, extensions-free hair!
 



Left, the notorious 1972 "Preserve Wildlife" 
LP cover, fair use photo by Ed Caraeff, from her band 
Mama Lion. '72 was also the year of her Penthouse 
Magazine cover as Pet of the Month: the lion cub 
would have been so proud!  




From Pantherinaephile to equine lover, Lynn later trekked to the ranch where I board my horse Indy and we rode about a bit. She met Lilly the Warmblood and Cody the Arabian in abject mutual admiration while tablet-documenting yours truly saddling Cody and feeding Indy his supplements and meds after the ride.











For those who wondered if the pipes persisted, here's a snippet from a performance earlier this year, video below and of course, hell yeah:

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DEATH OF A TREE 2.0

November 23, 2013, 9:22 am
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Sad day for our 100-year-old farmhouse in the middle of an otherwise densely packed metropolis: death of our 100-year-old walnut tree, which had threatened to take out others with it in its terminal desperation (two of its confreres had fallen on our automobiles, fortunately inanimate objects.) Photos above taken yesterday. Below, bygone days--another Pleasant Valley Sunday; then, less than pleasant recollections...

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Rest in peace WANDA COLEMAN

November 24, 2013, 8:56 am
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Above, my portrait of Wanda Coleman and Lydia Lunch,
for Freeway Records' 1985 release "Twin Sisters"  

It's called a showstopper, when a performance becomes so thrillingly insightful that instead of bursting into applause, an audience momentarily sits there in stunned silence. I witnessed one such drop-jawed showstopper in Hollywood, 1985 when Wanda Coleman, under the aegis of Harvey Kubernik's Freeway Records spoken word multiple artist shows, read aloud her poem recounting a take on brutally being raped. "Did you come?""...Yes..." 

Writer and world-class poet Coleman's forte was an almost pathological avoidance of cliche, characterized by her disdain for same wherever she found it. She famously dismissed African-American knee-jerk victimization chroniclers, even deeming a Maya Angelou work "Another traipse to the trough" in a book review. Her contrarian take against Dr. Angela Davis' association with a coterie of thugs even got her fired from the Los Angeles Free Press back in the otherwise free-wheeling late 1960s.

She made her living writing, even scripting "Days of Our Lives" soap operas. She won an Emmy for that one year's effort, underscoring the quality of her life's work in doing whatever you're doing really well. She hailed from a moderate income but education-infused family, and later installed her own in her life, married to Austin Strauss for 30 years, with children from her first marriage. Growing up in late 1940s/early '50s, pre-Watts riots Los Angeles guaranteed a trove of source material on genuine racial prejudice in action.

The above portrait commemorated Coleman's spoken word duets "Twin Sisters" with No Wave icon Lydia Lunch in 1985 for writer Harvey Kubernik's then label Freeway Records, the original oasis of rockers turned slam poets. It was shot in the 10 minute window Ms. Lunch had in her sorti to Los Angeles, wherein she claimed she needed a strong, strong image, but somewhat amused me by eventually preferring the pictures with the most (skin-softening) diffusion. At the shoot, Ms. Coleman was gracious as always, with her ever soothing voice that highlighted rage or reassurance without changing volume. She'd seen it all, and that's real strength.
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THE DOGS and a PAGAN record anew

December 3, 2013, 8:42 am
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THE DOGS recently backed former Pagan Mike Hudson on punkrock "I Want A Date"at Pawnshop Studios, Van Nuys CA for the latter's forthcoming solo release "Hollywood High." Above, L-R: Mike Hidson and DOGS Mary Kay, Loren Molinare and Tony Matteucci;below, assorted scenes from recording with engineer Patrick Burkholder plus Loren's discovery of a genuine rock and roll bathroom...
 

 
Above, joining the session for its last few spurts, Shelley Mitchell drove up from San Diego, amongst other party plans, to visit with her onetime roommates THE DOGS, as she once was part of their Gower St., Hollywood punkrock commune in the mid-1970s; yours truly only jumped into a photo by specific request. Below, the previous night's rehearsal chez ToneDog proved joyous, rapidfire and typically incendiary...


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Rest in peace NELSON MANDELA

December 5, 2013, 5:19 pm
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I offer this travelogue --click LINK-- as my meager tribute to the passing of a great humanitarian/activist. At least the spiritualism of Africa was addressed. Imagine accomplishing so difficult a complete sea change in one's own lifetime. Rest in peace Nelson Mandela.

My cousin John McLallen wrote rather more forcefully, "One of the few that weren't taken from us and how nice that was! Wasn't he cool! I enjoyed knowing that a man like him was amongst us. My father told me that there are people that arrive in history and provide direction and leadership while having no skin in the game other than doing what is right. Lincoln was one of those people and so was Rosa Parks. Bobby Kennedy was taken from us before the promise of his leadership could be realized. However, how sweet it is to see a life well spent and not taken from us."

Facebook friend and vocalist/musician Roderick B. Palmer splendidly offered, 
"A guy like Nelson Mandela reminds us all that you don't just have to be on this earth. It doesn't mean you have to end apartheid or something grand on that scale--go feed some homeless. Check on a friend and make sure they're okay. Be a better parent--because you don't know what kind of child you could be making into the next Mandela. Live a life of quiet purpose and love and you never have to be sorry someone like this is gone...you just wave goodbye and thank them for being so awesome in their journey, knowing perhaps someday in a place far from this one you'll get to break bread with them..." 

Lastly, Wall Street Journal's balanced op-ed summary 12.6.13 on Mandela "...He transcended his party's history of Marxism, tribalism and violence." ClickLINK.
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BACKYARD TREE INSTALLATION

December 10, 2013, 8:14 pm
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THE PIXIES' PICK

December 11, 2013, 5:59 pm
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Bassist Paz Lenchantin of The Entrance Band, pictured above in 2010 at the Jam for Ron Asheton, Hollywood CA, replaces Kim Shattuck (The Pandoras, The Muffs) for the remainder of The Pixies touring schedule as of today's news. Pixies' spin seems to dwell on Kim's active stage presence (bouncy/friendly, known to stage dive into audience) not jibing with the band, whereas, curiously, dextrous Paz is not exactly a shrinking violet onstage herself...

According to Facebook's ebullient "Lady Astor" of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Paz "...was born in seaside resort town of Mar del Plata, but she moved to Los Angeles with her parents when she was only four. Everyone here is pretty psyched about her." 

Many had been equally psyched about Shattuck, who will return to her Muffs. Offered above temporarily is Paula Pierce, singer/songwriter/guitarist of The Pandoras, see LINK, iconic all femme Paisley Underground then hard rock band of the 1980s during the era of Kim Shattuck's bass residency circa the late '80s, while yours truly digs through mounds of Pandoras' photography...
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