May 2006

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Tori Fixx: "Fuck our society"

My Q&A with Tori Fixx is live at citypages.com. (Reactions at DUNation and ILM. Also, read Riemenschneider's profile.) Here's his website and myspace. He appears in a new documentary about GLBT peoples in hip hop, Pick Up the Mic (Dylan Hicks review here), screening in Minneapolis this Friday at 9:00 p.m. at Suburban World Theater (with live performances); Saturday at 5:00 p.m. at District 202 (above Nicollet Village Video), and Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. at Suburban World as part of the Flaming Film Festival (myspace)--read the full overview in City Pages. Then Fixx performs on Sunday at the 7th St. Entry with Soce, Aggracyst, Nicky Click, Deadlee, Johnny Dangerous, and Katastrophe (though no Deep Dickollective) as part of this:

Lesbians Love Sandez Rey

On Monday I got a call from a lesbian rapper who wants Sandez Rey to illustrate her album cover. Good to see a couple stories coming together like that.

Recently posted elsewhere:

New NOFX song and video about the Triple Rock (cpculture.com 5/12/06), Dancing in the Streets now legal in Minneapolis (cpculture.com 5/15/06), Local rock stars release children's CD (cpculture.com 5/16/06), Suicide Commandos reunite at MN Rock Hall of Fame (cpculture.com 5/16/06), Dirty Sandez: When it comes to giving porn consumers what they want,
the creator of Crimson Gash comics refuses
to color between the lines (citypages.com 5/17/06), Body Worlds: "Bring out your dead" (cpculture.com 5/17/06), Boredoms to play Endtimes Music Festival June 23 (cpculture.com 5/18/06), Circus Magazine, R.I.P. (cpculture.com 5/18/06), Friday videos: "Always be closing"/"cobbling" (cpculture.com 5/19/06), EW's Top 25 music websites (cpculture.com 5/22/06), Art-A-Whirled: Scenes from a weekend in Northeast (cpculture.com 5/22/06), More scenes from Art-a-Whirl Saturday (complicatedfun.com 5/23/06), Mark Mallman and Chuck Klosterman team-up (cpculture.com 5/22/06), Late pass: Return of the Blues Saloon, sort of (cpculture.com 5/23/06), Late pass: Sicbay break up (cpculture.com 5/24/06), No more "no homo": Tori Fixx won't be trapped in the hip-hop closet (citypages.com 5/24/06), Your first TC summer concert and festival guide of 2006 (cpculture.com 5/24/06).

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 24, 2006 11:54 AM | Comments (1)

 

More scenes from Art-a-Whirl Saturday

(Click most of these photos for larger images.) As described here at cpculture.com: Pillow Fight Club Minneapolis aftermath during Art-a-Whirl; "Mean Doll/Martha" by Kristen Short; Pam Valfer (Saucer/Kitty Craft) poses with painting of "Alyssa"; "That Special Lady" by Craig Grabhorn; the Floor Shakers play parking lot in front of Elias Metal. More pillow fight photos at flickr, and here, and here.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 24, 2006 4:43 AM | Comments (1)

 

Scenes from "the Church" and other Machelle photos

My friend Machelle Lee came to town this week and took these great photos. We went to an underground music show "the Church" in Minneapolis with Toasty to see Oakland's Faun Fables (below). It was a kind of rock opera with video projections, about being on a train, missing your stop, being late, and not being able to get off the train. I also liked opening band Fuzzy Cousins, with two of the same musicians. (Click some of these for larger images.)

My crayon drawing of Machelle at Little T's, where Toasty and I took her after the show. Then Machelle's self-portrait from earlier in the day, with her friend Andrew Schiff in the background.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 17, 2006 5:08 PM | Comments (0)

 

List everything that makes this comix cover collectible

(Click for larger image.) My profile/appreciation of Minneapolis sex comix artist Sandez Rey, "Dirty Sandez," is live at citypages.com. (New Times wants tits? You got tits.) An excerpt about the cover above:

If this new pornographer in comics has a unique charm, it lies in the quaintness of his transgressions. The most notorious Rey cover, for last year's The Crimson Gash #1 ("The Crimson Gash Vrs. Hitler"), feels almost nostalgic, what with all the monsters and missiles and Hitler. Its most contemporary touches are the syringes hanging from the left breast of Sheriff Judy, another Gash regular. (She gets her stabber back with a needle to his eye.) Yet the artist's motives for even that bit of unsightliness are supremely fan-boyish: Comic-book price guides routinely identify covers featuring Hitler as collectible. Ditto eye injuries, drug use, protruding breasts, bondage, torture, or atomic blasts. Says the illustrator: "What I did with this cover was try to hit every category."

Here's the full photo of Sandez Rey by Richard Fleischman (click for larger version):

The Crimson Gash stomps her conscience in Blowjob # 8

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 16, 2006 5:28 PM | Comments (0)

 

The best of K Records

My emusic guide to the best 12 albums put out by K Records (myspace here) is live. Feel free to post your disagreements here. I have to revise one choice, anyway, because of evolving distribution rights for Snuff. Banging this out let me appreciate Beat Happening again (yep, they're on myspace), and made me check out all the K artists I'd only read about. If anyone ever tells you something "sounds like a K band," send them to this piece. Good to be working for Michaelangelo Matos and, indirectly, Michael Azerrad, whose Our Band Could Be Your Life was indispensable for the article.

Recent posts elsewhere not completely out of date:

Tell me something good: 5 Things to Remember About Race and Hip-Hop (MNArtists.org 4/3/06), Big Proof's music-video death (cpculture.com 4/12/06), The club formerly known as the Quest is now Heaven and Earth--no, really (cpculture.com 4/24/06), Sex machines: Phone me again! Over and over! (cpculture.com 4/25/06), To the tune of "Dust in the Wind": "Snakes on a plane/All we are is snakes on a plane" (cpculture.com 4/27/06), The Keep Aways, a reason to go to Duluth next weekend (cpculture.com 4/228/06), CD review: Mazta I, Thank the Lord and the Sword! (Citypages.com 5/3/06), Late Pass: Video of Atmosphere on Jimmy Kimmel (cpculture.com 5/3/06), Name the new band of Prince/Flyte Tyme vets (cpculture.com 5/5/06), Wanna get married onstage? At a rock show? By robots? (cpculture.com 5/5/06), Grant McLennan of the Go-Betweens: 1958 - 2006 (cpculture.com 5/8/06), Top ten blurry highlights from Homegrown (cpculture.com 5/9/06), First Geek Prom, now Goth Prom--and Punk Rock Prom (cpculture.com 5/11/06), PM Dawn at Club Underground Saturday (cpculture.com 5/12/06), Art party: Negativland at Creative Electric tonight (cpculture.com 5/12/06), Late pass: The Quest is still the Quest, with new web site (cpculture.com 5/12/06), CTG: Smiley faces lied well before Wal-Mart tried to trademark them (cpculture.com 5/12/06), The E Music Dozen: K Records (emusic.com 5/12/06)

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 12, 2006 5:40 PM | Comments (0)

 

Thursday audio: Pauline Kael on the Auteur Theory

Listen to this 55-minute radio broadcast of Pauline Kael attacking the auteur theory in 1963, speaking at San Fernando Valley State College, and unearthed by tsutpen.blogspot.com (thanks to Matos, via Rockcriticsdaily, which also links Kael talking to Jean-Luc Godard). I've read Kael since the early '80s, and this is the first time I've ever heard her voice. Am I surprised it sounds nothing like I imagined? For more Kael audio, slightly closer to how I'd imagine her, here's NPR's 2001 special after her death, with links to various radio appearances over the years. She's the reason I do this, so I'll always go back to her. Here's the entire Pauline Kael Archives at rockcritics.com.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 11, 2006 3:24 AM | Comments (0)

 

A brief history of "We Shall Overcome"

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 10, 2006 11:49 PM | Comments (0)

 

More scenes from Duluth's Homegrown Music Festival

Above: (click most of these photos for a full image) Scenes from the ballroom above the Electric Fetus on Friday, with Anti-Anne, a.k.a. "Bob Saget." See "Top ten blurry highlights from Homegrown" at cpculture.com for more details, as well as the festival's official site, its myspace page, and various posts at perfectduluthday.com. Below: Boy Girl Boy Girl at Pizza Luce on Friday, Bone Appetit at R.T. Quinlan's, the Black Labels at the Tap Room, and dancers behind the Black-Eyed Snakes at Pizza Luce.

Then, on Saturday...

Above: Friday Night team poses after losing kickball, with Saturday team in background (lounging in the middle: HotRod HeartThrob and Alan Sparhawk). Bear Garden at the ballroom, the Undesirables at the Red Lion, Sara Softich Band at the Brewhouse (where Toasty caught up with Mary Bue), and Farewell Tour at the Red Lion. Below: Crew Jones at the Tap Room, the Little Black Books at R.T. Quinlan's, the Keep Aways at R.T. Quinlan's, NorShor marquee from Thursday night's Low show. On Sunday, a long article on the NorShor appeared in the Duluth News-Tribune. My friend Tim Nelson, of Boy Girl Boy Girl, and others said it was skewed against the owner, never mentioning that he frustrated developer plans to turn the NorShor into a parking lot years ago.

Postscript: Had breakfast at Luce with Tim and Veronica from Boy Girl Boy Girl, and Simon Grey, a.k.a. Jay Nailer, whom I wrote about at 2003's Homegrown. His song, the one with the chorus "Stick that cell phone sideways up your ass," is now available as a ringtone. Sell-out.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 10, 2006 4:31 PM | Comments (3)

 

Late Monday video: Slug and Eyedea on the Wake Up Show

Watch part one and two of Rhymesayers Slug and Eyedea on the Wake Up Show at ever-beloved Youtube.com (thanks to this thread at DUNation). I guess this has been kicking around the internet for a while, at least since 2005. Anyone know the date? The context? On an entirely different plane, I'm digging the Myspace songs by new old-timey duo Roma Di Luna, featuring Crescent Moon of Kill the Vultures/Oddjobs on guitar. With these guys, the Roe Family Singers, and all the Duluth roots bands, there seems to be a genuine movement underway, though maybe it was there all along and I never noticed before.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 9, 2006 2:59 AM | Comments (0)

 

Ice Cube today at McNally Smith

As he came in the McNally Smith building this afternoon, a laptop DJ played the Isley Brothers' "Footsteps in the Dark" (sampled on "It Was a Good Day") and cameras flashed--a genuine rock-star moment. Then, when he walked into the auditorium, a live quartet of students was onstage, playing the same song! Sitting in the front row, Cube bobbed his head appreciatively.

Here's my preview of tonight's show. Was I harsh to bring up the old controversies? Maybe not: When asked if he had any regrets earlier today, Ice Cube pretty much said no. Nice guy, though, good with the crowd. He said being at the school, and being honored by the new annual scholarship in his name, was the highlight of his career. Tonight's show at First Avenue (he goes onstage at about 9:00 p.m.) shouldn't be missed.

As for the rumor that Cube once lived in Minneapolis, contrary to reports here and here (and--oops--in the A-list), this is what he said when I asked about it during a brief press Q&A at the school:

I heard that you lived in Minneapolis.

Nah, nah. Never.

Did you record here?

Nah, I just wrote about it in a song.

You didn't live in Minnetonka. How did these rumors get spread?

I don't know, man. You know how rumors are.

You never had a girlfriend on the North Side?

Never had a girlfriend on the North Side. I'll take one. [everyone laughs]

How did you end up writing about being here?

It was at a time when a lot of guys I knew were fleeing Los Angeles looking for places to set up and be. And Minnesota, nice place. Sounded right. That's how I picked it.

[Lars Larson of DUNation--and I'll correct this if it's wrong, it was hard to hear] You directed the "Bop Gun" video, right? With Prince...[??] Do you want to get back with him?

Yeah, it was cool. That was my first time getting a chance to even meet and talk to him. It made me decide to go ahead and do a movie.

[Lars] Is anything going to continue with that now that Prince is all open [??] to other artists and stuff?

I hope so. You know, I'm trying. You got his number?

[Everyone laughs.]

When asked, during his earlier Q&A with students in the auditorium, who's the one artist in film or music he'd like to work with, Cube said Prince. Now that Prince is out in L.A., at least until his lease runs out this month, maybe that'll happen. (For a glimpse of Prince's new mansion, pick up Kevin Powell's cover story on Dave Chappelle in May's Esquire.) Today was also graduation day, and another Minneapolis-L.A. musician, Willie Wisely, was the commencement speaker.

Here's the 2006 video for "Race Card," promoting the FX show Black.White.--which I missed. (Also on the FX Network, which I don't have: a series starring Andre Braugher and set in New Orleans? Why was I not informed!)

Sunday update: More on Ice Cube at Saucydame. (Above photo courtesy of the school. Below: "The moment frozen in time"--me asking Ice Cube stupid questions. Another photo of the same thing, from Patrick Whalen. Surreal.)

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 4, 2006 7:34 PM | Comments (2)

 

Thursday video: "Electric Relaxation"

Watch the video and try not to get caught up in it. Black and white! Directed by Fab Five Freddy! Not quite as classic as the song, but more reminiscent of the medium's (music video's) '80s heyday than most '90s rap vids. The song remains the perfect soundtrack to untighten the muscles in your head and let the blood rush southward. A Tribe Called Quest sampled Ronnie Foster's "Mystic Brew" and Ramsey Lewis's "Dreams" to hypnotic effect. The funniest (and most misquoted) gross-little-brother line was from Phife Dawg, who performs a matinee show Friday in St. Paul at Station 4: "If my mom don't approve, then I'll just elope/Let me save the little man from inside the bowl/Let me hit it from the back, girl, I won't catch a hernia/Bust off on your couch, now you got semen's furniture."

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 4, 2006 6:53 PM | Comments (0)

 

New Orleans: Putting liberals to sleep

I missed the first half hour of Monday's "great conversation" at the U of M on rebuilding New Orleans, but in the hour or so I saw, there was almost no mention of the city itself until a written question from the audience came asking what the metropolis would look like in the future, and the school's Judith Martin mentioned a recent piece of legislation, not saying what it was, that would allow city residents to return to where they lived. That's not smart urban planning, she said. Louisiana is sinking. Parts of New Orleans will be underwater again. The new New Orleans will be smaller and less "diverse."

In other words, she mouthed the usual self-fulfilling liberal pessimism of those who conflate the man-made disasters of Louisiana with the natural ones, and who make the worst-case social scenario a reality by saying it's only realistic to do so. I would call members of this camp "eco-ethnic cleansers" if that didn't ramp-up already overcooked rhetoric, but those aghast at my hyperbole really should examine their assumptions: Did anyone notice that it took dark-horse black mayoral candidate Tom Watson to even bring up the issue of the displaced population during the pre-election mayoral debate?

I have a terrible memory when put on the spot, so if the law Martin was referring to slipped her mind, I don't blame her. (I can't find anything about it in the Time-Picayune as recently as this excellent May 1 article on the 9th Ward's DIY rebuilding effort.) That said, her failure to mention the massive political marginalization of most of the New Orleans population strikes me as disengaged and irresponsible. She seems to have useful ideas, and her "conversation" partner, Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer, said (and has done) excellent things about revamping FEMA and restoring the Army Corps of Engineers. He has introduced good legislation to prevent flood-prone rebuilding. Yet for all his anecdotes about the "communities" of Oregon, he never utters the word "protest." Both he and Martin speak in the first-person plural of policy-makers, as if "we" all have the power to implement, without a fight, the smart suggestions they offer. Blumenauer has been outspoken on the very-possibly man-made phenomenon of global warming. How can he speak so complacently about "anticipating the market," when that mild social corrective has failed us so dramatically on the crucial issues of our time?

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 3, 2006 1:13 PM | Comments (0)

 

A platform for New Orleans

With a blowout Jazz Fest this weekend signaling anything but American indifference, and with a talk tonight on rebuilding New Orleans (at 7:30 p.m. at Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis), I thought I'd post something I'd been kicking around at ILX since before the recent primary elections (in which about 30 percent of those in mostly African-American precincts turned out, while nearly 50 percent in mostly white precincts turned out). Here's an outline, up for debate and discussion, of what I think should be done in New Orleans. You can guess where I stand from my recent music articles, but this isn't just for me: Let's talk about putting together a popular platform:

#1. Rebuild levees to withstand category 5 hurricanes.

#2. Provide transportation, temporary housing, and jobs to anyone who wants to return and participate in the reconstruction.

#3. Enact some Baker-like plan for federally-guaranteed bail-out of property owners, with the condition that half these properties be re-sold at below-market rates, or developed as subsidized mixed- and low-income housing.

#4. Re-bid all no-bid contracts and fire those companies that either failed New Orleans or are ripping off tax payers.

#5. Restore coastal wetlands, using cutter-head dredges to harvest sediments from river bottoms or offshore sources, and bringing them back through pipelines to degraded marshes or shallow open waters. Restore 15 percent of the city to wetlands in a socially equitable manner.

#6. Come up with an evacuation plan for when the current levees get topped again.

#7. Raise minimum wage for anyone working on govt. contracts. Recognize unions in all these industries.

#8. Close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.

#9. Protect the property rights of homeowners, and include representatives of the effected communities on every level of planning.

#10. Reopen and rebuild the schools, hospitals, and other essentials.

#11. Subsidize temporary housing for renters to return home to work in New Orleans. Fill all current vacancies with federal housing vouchers.

#12. Set up polling places in Houston and Atlanta for evacuees to vote in the run-off election.

#13. Come up with a plan to clean up the environment in New Orleans.

See also:
levees.org
reconstructionwatch.org
commongroundrelief.org
Mike Davis in the Nation: "Who Is Killing New Orleans?"
The Mardi Gras Index
Vatul.net/blog
www.nola.com
www.bestofneworleans.com

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at May 1, 2006 1:38 PM | Comments (1)

 

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