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ARTHUR MAGAZINE


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Featured


COMPOSTING ARTHUR’S REMAINS

 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 



“I’m here to capture the rapture and the resurrection at the same time,” says
Tim Dundon, pushing a wheelbarrow brimming with fresh mulch, leading me up the
inclined path into his shady tropical reserve. “Isn’t life triumphing over death
the resurrection? The body turns back to basics and then the basics are picked
up by the next generation and the next generation makes use of it and is happy
to live inside this new entity because it didn’t go to the landfill. It went to
the hill with the will.”

— from “The Sodfather” by Daniel Chamberlin, originally published in Arthur
(Dec. 2007)

In the spirit of Tim Dundon, we’re doing some compost work here on the site,
making sure nothing goes to the landfill, and all that we did back then is
available to the next generation. We’re restoring lost blog images and credits,
and posting text, photos and art from old print issues of Arthur Magazine online
for the first time.

There’s a lot in the archives for us to choose from, and we’re not doing it in
any systematic order. If there’s something you’d like to see online sooner than
later, let us know in the “Comments” section below. Requested items will then be
brought online, archived and highlighted in the blog.

Jay Babcock (jay@arthurmag.com)

p.s. 2022: I’m now writing a weekly email newsletter called Landline. Have a
gander: https://jaybabcock.substack.com/

p.p.s. 2024: This website/archive takes no ads, but it does cost money to
maintain. If you find anything of value here, and would like help out with
defraying costs, please buy me a coffee. Thank you kindly!

September 22, 2021 by Jay Babcock Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Arik Roper,
Arthur Magazine, compost, Daniel Chamberlin, tim dundon | 5 Comments


A WATERSHED RUNS THROUGH YOU

Poet/author/mensch Jerry Martien has edited A Watershed Runs Through You:
Essays, Talks, and Reflections on Salmon, Restoration, and Community, a
gorgeously appointed print collection of Freeman House’s writings on ecology and
bioregionalism, just out from Empty Bowl Press.

Longtime Arthur readers may remember many of the essays featured herein from
when they were presented as part of Freeman’s weekly “Sunday Lecture”
series that we published on the Arthur website back in 2010-2011.

Freeman House

Amongst other things in his long and varied life, Freeman edited Innerspace, a
mid-1960s independent press magazine for the nascent psychedelic community…

Innerspace No. 4, 1967. Might be the best purely psychedelic magazine I’ve ever
seen. Copies are unfortunately rare and scans seem to be incomplete.

… and, as “Boo-Hoo” leader of the Neo-American Church, Freeman presided over the
marriage of Abbie and Anita Hoffman at Central Park…

Freeman House (center) presides over wedding of Anita and Abbie Hoffman in New
York’s Central Park (June 10, 1967). Photo by Fred W. McDarrah

…and Freeman was a member of both New York City’s Group Image and the San
Francisco Diggers, before moving to Humboldt County, where he labored across
four decades to restore the Mattole River watershed. Freeman’s award-winning
2000 book Totem Salmon: Life Lessons From Another Species was blurbed by poet
Gary Snyder thus: “A grave and personal book, both personal and cosmic.”



I loved and admired this man, who died in 2018, and am so grateful to Jerry
and Empty Bowl Press for bringing A Watershed Runs Through You to the public.
And so is “Fup” author Jim Dodge, who has saluted the book like so:

> “Endless bows of gratitude to Jerry Martien for his savvy salvage of Freeman
> House’s scattered essays and talks. Freeman’s essays, along with his longer
> works, are absolutely fundamental to understanding bioregionalism,
> living-in-place, living-by-life, or just drawing breath in these unsettled
> times where humans must deal with the damages wrought by everything from
> dammed rivers to internal combustion. Freeman offers insights into clearing
> the wreckage as well as a constant sense of delight in dealing with the
> natural world; we neglect his heart-root wisdom at our own peril.”


February 26, 2024 by Jay Babcock Categories: "Sunday Lecture" series by Freeman
House, Uncategorized | Tags: Freeman House | Leave a comment


ARTHUR’S LOST SPRING 2007 ISSUE

Cover design by Mark Frohman and Molly Frances; photography by Eden Batki

Above: an early draft for the cover of what was intended to be Arthur No. 26,
originally scheduled for release in Spring 2007.

This issue was delayed til the fall amidst the publication’s ownership
transition; by that point, some of the pieces scheduled for publication were no
longer available, and Yoko Ono was no longer the cover subject. A real shame.

My biggest regret of all is we lost our massive salute to Sly and the Family
Stone, which had been timed to coincide with the Spring 2007 re-release of the
band’s entire catalog. The Seth Man had worked so hard, on an insane deadline,
to cover it all with his customary sensitivity, scholarship and enthusiasm. Oh,
the loss!

In any event, the Seth Man’s pieces appeared in some form later in the year on
Julian Cope’s relentlessly inspirational Head Heritage website. Here they are:

LIVIN’, LOVIN’, OVERDUBBIN’ … Sly Stone: The Slippery One Who Got Away (main
feature)

Dance to the Music (1968)

Life (1968)

Stand! (1969)

There’s a Riot Goin‘ On (1971)

Small Talk (1974)

Sly Stone Stone Flower singles (1970)

— Jay Babcock

April 15, 2022 by Jay Babcock Categories: Arthur No. 26 (Sept. 2007), Eden
Batki, Mark Frohman, Molly Frances, The Seth Man | Tags: Arthur Magazine,
Deerhoof, Eden Batki, James Brown, Sir Eric Sweetscent, Sly and the Family
Stone, Sonny Hopson, Yoko Ono | Leave a comment


ARTHUR FOLKS DOING STUFF IN 2022

Jay Babcock (editor): https://jaybabcock.substack.com/

“Landline is a weekly-ish newsletter of ideas, nudges and recommendations that
hopefully form a small bailiwick outside the cruddiness at large from the former
editor of Arthur Magazine. Free to read, sustained by cheap subscriptions.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel “Cosmic Chambo” Chamberlin (contributing editor):
https://cosmicchambo.substack.com/

“Daniel Chamberlin is an artist, writer, yin yoga teacher and Zen student based
on the low-rolling plains of East Central Indiana. He’s also the host
of Inter-Dimensional Music, a weekly broadcast of “heavy mellow, kosmische slop,
and void contemplation tactics,” heard since 2010 on Marfa Public Radio in Far
West Texas and broadcasting on 99.1FM WQRT Indianapolis and LOOKOUT FM in Los
Angeles. His creative practice combines visual art, installation, performance,
and audio with mindfulness teaching based on the radical implications of yoga
and Zen. His visual art is concerned with uncovering the transcendent and
psychedelic aspects of otherwise mundane objects and experiences.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Erik Davis (contributor, columnist): https://www.burningshore.com/

“I am Erik Davis (www.techgnosis.com), an author, scholar, award-winning
journalist, podcaster, and professional talker. My wide-ranging work dances
around the intersection of alternative religion, media, the popular imagination,
and the cultural history of California. Burning Shore will continue to rove
through this wide field, as I think about now and then, culture and catastrophe,
through the lens of what I call ‘California consciousness.'”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nance Klehm (columnist): https://socialecologies.net/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Douglas Rushkoff (contributor, columnist): https://www.teamhuman.fm/

“Team Human is a podcast striving to amplify human connection. Each week we are
engaging in real-time, no-holds-barred discussions with people who are hacking
the machine to make it more compatible with human life, and helping redefine
what it means to stay human in a digital age.”

January 24, 2022 by Jay Babcock Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment


ARTHUR V GODSMACK OVER HORRIBLE BAND’S PARTICIPATION IN WARTIME MILITARY
RECRUITING CAMPAIGN (NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, MAY 10, 2006)

In reference to “Talking to GODSMACK about what they use they use their music
for,” published online in May 2006 and then in print in Arthur No. 23 (July
2006)…



January 24, 2022 by Jay Babcock Categories: Jay Babcock, Press | Tags: Arthur
Magazine, George Rush, Godsmack, Jay Babcock, Navy, New York Daily News, Rush
and Malloy, Sully Erna | Leave a comment


WILLFULLY DISTURBING: ARTIST ARIK ROPER ON THE ART AND INSPIRATION OF FILMMAKER
RALPH BAKSHI (ARTHUR, 2008)

Originally published in Arthur No. 29 (May 2008)

WILLFULLY DISTURBING

Artist Arik Roper on the art and inspiration of filmmaker Ralph Bakshi

Art direction by Mark Frohman and Molly Frances

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I found Ralph Bakshi’s work at a crucial time in my life, maybe the perfect age.
I was maybe 13, exploring underground comix, Heavy Metal magazine, classic
rock—all the common things adolescent males used to check out, before the
internet was unleashed. Around this time, my father told me about a film called
Wizards. I don’t know how it came up, maybe he saw one of my Vaughn Bode books
and was reminded of it, but his description of the movie was intriguing: a dark,
animated fantasy epic with violence, sex and an army from hell modeled after the
Nazis. I had to see it. The year was 1986. The population was at the mercy of
cable TV and whatever had been released on VHS to satisfy our movie desires.
Fortunately Wizards existed on video and I managed to find a copy. It was moody,
psychedelic and dark; it spoke to my interest in nature and mysticism, with some
humor and voluptuous fairies thrown in. It blew me away. My drawings became more
and more about this occult fantasy world, influenced by Bakshi and the others
who designed the film.

Wizards was significant, but the real mindwarping was yet to come , and started
the day I came across the video box for Fritz the Cat. An X-rated cartoon! I had
intuited something like this must have been made by someone somewhere, and here
it was. I put it back on the shelf scheming about how I could see this thing. I
knew if I told my best friend Greg about Fritz the Cat that he’d rent it, since
he didn’t care what his mother thought. Then we would sit back and lose our
minds as we watched anthropomorphic cartoon pornography. I told Greg, he said
he’d look for it. I was vaguely aware of the R. Crumb comic it was based on, so
I looked for that in the meantime. The thing invaded my consciousness; I became
so obsessed with the movie that I started to have dreams featuring the
as-yet-unseen Fritz the Cat film. Finally Greg came through with the videotape
and we watched the infamous flick. I was baffled and a little disturbed. Sure
there was a lot of sex and drugs in there but what was with all the violence,
the revolution, the racism issues? There was something nightmarish about seeing
these talking animals screwing and killing each other. It was heavier, more
bleak than I expected. And though it left me feeling slightly haunted, it didn’t
diminish my interest in all things Fritz. I drew the character on my notebooks
at school; I made a clay figure of him holding a cigarette and machine gun in my
8th grade art class; I even painted him—and my art teacher put it on display,
eventually submitted it for a school an art show. The gun and cigarette got it
disqualified.

Naturally the next step was to find out what else this guy Ralph Bakshi had
made. I checked out library books on animation, read old newspaper articles on
the Microfiche to learn more about the man. I managed to discover some other
movie titles: Heavy Traffic, Coonskin, American Pop, and a version of Lord of
the Rings. But where was I going to find this stuff? I didn’t even know if it
existed on video. Every month I scoured the cable TV listings for any sign of
Bakshi’s films, but nothing. Then one day Greg got his hands on Coonskin, or
“Streetfight” as it had been renamed at the time. I borrowed it , brought it
home after school one day and checked it out. I had read that it was considered
offensive, so I was expecting shock value, but Coonskin was more than shock, it
was from some dark place that I hadn’t visited before. It was relentlessly raw
and visceral, the violence was staggering, and presented in the goriest of
detail. I had some understanding of the laborious task of creating an animated
film, and was amazed that anyone had put this much time and effort into making
something so willfully disturbing. Where did this movie come from, who was it
for? I didn’t quite get it at the time. I wasn’t really sure if the racism was
being parodied or promoted, although the fact that no race, religion or sexual
orientation was left unscathed was a clue that this was some form of harsh
social satire. But there was much more to the movie than shock value. Later as I
reflected and eventually read more about the film, I started to put the pieces
together. Coonskin was basically a blaxploitation flick, and loosely modeled
after Disney’s super-controversial, removed-from-circulation Song of the South.
It was a look at racism in America from the black perspective, an urban fable
full of crooked cops, hookers, mobsters, and the prison system all conspiring
against the soul of America. It was very much a product of the times, saturated
with that 1970s grit and melancholy that defined many films of that era. 

After seeing Coonskin, I knew Bakshi was something of a maniac—an unpredictable
and possibly psychotic artist who was liable to go into any territory with his
films. Nothing was sacred or off-limits. This was why I liked him. And why I was
surprised to learn in 1988 that he was directing a new series of Mighty Mouse
cartoons for the Saturday morning slot on ABC TV. (What I didn’t realize at the
time was that this was full-circle for Ralph. He had started out at Terrytoons
in the 1960s working on such TV cartoons as Spiderman and Deputy Dawg.) I was
ready. I recorded every episode as it aired. I even got the episode where Mighty
Mouse unexpectedly pulls out a crushed flower from his pocket and snorts it up,
which was edited out for subsequent airings for some reason. The show lasted one
season then was gone, but launched the career of its designer John Kricfalusi
who redefined modern animation in the 1990s with his new project Ren & Stimpy.

During the next year or so I caught up on some of Bakshi’s films. Lord of the
Rings had an entirely different look and feel. It was rotoscoped—an animation
technique of tracing live actors on film— which was a stark contrast to the
loose cartoon design of Bakshi’s previous films. Comical characters doing awful
things resulted in maximum impact, but rotoscoping led to a more realistic style
that was ultimately less personal and expressive. I felt something was lost in
the process—the technique spoke louder than the content at times. I had the same
impression of Bakshi’s American Pop (1981) and Fire and Ice (1983). Though the
art was elaborate, they seemed to lack the fundamental soul of the earlier
films. Still, they were boldly sincere and imaginative efforts which expanded on
new concepts in animation. I realized that even as Bakshi struggled with the
changing industry through the late ’70s and early ’80s to realize his visions,
seemingly always on the verge of quitting, he’d never run out of ideas. Here was
an artist with a vision who wasn’t content to compromise. Somehow he took
“cartoons” and made them into “films” for adults (which includes adolescent
males). He was inspiring.

Which is why it’s such a pleasure to behold Unfiltered: The: Complete Ralph
Bakshi, by John M. Gibson and Chris McDonnell (Universal/Rizzoli). At long last,
over 35 years after his first movie came out, somebody decided it was time for a
Bakshi retrospective. It’s a striking hardback volume, loaded with previously
unpublished photos, illustrations and tons of precious info. We get the insane
stories behind the groundbreaking films (Wizards was Bakshi’s attempt to make a
“family film,” to get back to his early interest in sci-fi fantasy and prove
that he could deliver impact to a PG picture), and how most of them almost
didn’t happen due to production nightmares, studio underfunding and protests
from offended citizens. In short, Unfiltered is the book I’ve been waiting to
read since I was 13, but one I can appreciate as an adult.

Ralph Bakshi hasn’t made a feature film or TV special since 1992, which is a
cultural shame. But the times have changed again, and in some ways, his vintage
work feels current. Art and culture have caught up to some of his ideas, and the
climate is now more welcoming to adult animation. But, at the same time, nobody
in the US is using as a serious medium for storytelling. Meanwhile, computer
animation has reworked the field, eliminating most traces of individuality and
style. It is unlikely that Bakshi’s films could be made today: they are time
capsules in both content and execution. He was a pioneer, merging the cutesy
world of animation with with raw realism, cutting social satire, sex, violence,
drugs, music and all the other “adult” themes which had previously been kept
outside the court of acceptable themes for a medium that was thought to be for
children. Bakshi knew one of the great powers of animation: that the hyperbolic
drawn image has the potential to express more than live action ever can. By
injecting the zeitgeist’s innocent image of cartoons with unflattering and dark
sides of the modern era, he exploited a schism in the pop culture’s mind.
Underground comics started this; Bakshi took it to the screen.

December 1, 2021 by Jay Babcock Categories: Arik Roper, Arthur No. 29 (May 2008)
| Tags: Arik Roper, Arthur Magazine, Chris McDonnell, Greg, John M. Gibson,
Ralph Bakshi | Leave a comment


“YOU CANNOT OVERESTIMATE HOW BIG A DEAL THIS HAIR THING WAS AT THE TIME”: DAVID
BERMAN ON A CERTAIN SHIFT IN PUNK CULTURE IN THE 1980S

Sometime in 2004, I asked Daniel Chamberlin to write a piece for Arthur to
explain how on earth he could be so into the Grateful Dead—how it had happened,
what was the nature of the appeal given his other tastes in music, yadda yadda.
He’d talk about the Dead in conversation, but I’m not he’d ever thought about
writing such a piece. I wanted him to go for it, to really think it through and
get it down. Make the pitch for the Dead! I had a hunch it might resonate with
Arthur’s audience, such as it was. Dan wasn’t sure, but he went for it.

Somewhere along the line, I guess I asked David Berman if he’d like to
illustrate Dan’s piece. Berman had already let us publish some of his “Scenes
From the First Yes Tour” comics in the first issue of Arthur, so this wasn’t a
completely out-of-leftfield idea… But I also think it must have been because
Berman had mentioned the Dead somewhere — in a lyric, or a poem, in an
interview, in a comic strip, in private conversation, I don’t know; something
about the space between the notes of Jerry Garcia solos being the key to the
Dead’s appeal? (Maybe a Berman scholar can help us out here. Please.) In any
event, David gave us two single-panel comics to run with the piece in the July
2004 issue fo Arthur. You can see scans of them here.

I don’t know where in the timeline of all of this I received the following email
from DCB, addressed to Dan. Maybe there was some correspondence back and forth
between them while he was coming up with the art to accompany the piece? Dan
can’t remember and neither can I. All I know is that I’ve saved it all these
years, and Berman either never sent a follow-up, or it’s lost.

—Jay Babcock

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: “D.C. Berman”
Subject: RE: Alienated Deadheads
Date: Wed, 05 May 2004 12:20:19 -0500

oops. this is the first part of my response to your question and I haven’t even
gotten to the part where i start liking the dead yet. more tomorrow.

DCB

You see a lot of reassessments of 1980’s culture nowadays. These reassessments
might lead you to believe that sarcastic new wave music was the dominant trend
in the decade but i remember it differently. I remember new wave as an aberrant,
sometimes top 40, middle ground between the more rigorous fucktruck of hardcore
(and what we now call post-punk bands) and the true ruling culture of (hair and
seventies) metal and classic rock. This revisionism is standard procedure
(consider how hard it is to find an admitted Uriah Heep or Three Dog Night fan
on the links nowadays), and will soon have its chance to do a number on the
present era as today’s teenagers tomorrow, wised up through learned humiliation,
will replace their memories of attending dave matthews concerts with false ones
about chasing down royal trux bootlegs at the corner store.


I have always held contempt for people who trust those that do not have their
best interests in mind (like poor people who vote republican, for instance).
They are in a word, dupes.  And from my olympian perch (for I had placed myself
above all mankind except Greg Ginn) there were no bigger dupes in sight than
deadheads. Instead of creating their own culture they had borrowed that of their
aunts and uncles. In fact that’s what deadheads seemed like to me, even ones my
own age, prematurely elderly. But worse, old folks wearing pajamas with teddy
bears on them (the grandma glasses, unkempt hair and frail arthritic music). It
really gave me a stomach ache just to gaze on them. Meanwhile things were
changing a bit for young strident assholes. Rollins grew his hair. The Meat
Puppets slowed down, Karl Precoda grew his hair (you cannot under overestimate
how big a deal this hair thing was at the time), DRI went metal as did plenty of
other hardcore bands. I started to soften to guitar solos. There was less
dexedrine and more acid.”You’re Living All Over Me” changed my mind about a lot
of things (I remember where i was when i heard the news that a group of classic
rockers nobody gave a fuck about had filed suit against Dinosaur about the name
and remember feeling the helpless frustration that they (the hippies) had done
it again! (Though forcing Dinosaur to add Jr. to their name might have been the
original hippies final cultural victory). A lot of people started changing their
minds. It seems that while we were railing against the classic rockers our
heroes had decided that the real enemy was the boring rules of hardcore. In
those days all shows of an “underground” nature attracted the entire “punk
community” of whatever town. No band could command an audience large enough to
justify subsets of fans, so touring bands were constantly the object of abuse by
those in the audience of a different punk rock denomination. Why did Richmond
skinheads show up at decidedly brainy Honor Role shows? It was the only game in
town. This set up all kinds of conflict which (considering the artists were
contrarian in nature) drove a lot of post-punk bands to adopt hippy tropes (just
to piss rules loving militants off).


More than any other band I think the Butthole Surfers started to crumble the
distinctions between hippie and punk.

October 27, 2021 by Jay Babcock Categories: David Berman | Leave a comment


“WAY TO GO, OHIO”: AN EXCLUSIVE Q&A WITH THE PRETENDERS’ CHRISSIE HYNDE AND
JAMES WALBOURNE, BY OLIVER HALL (ARTHUR, 2008)

Originally published in Arthur No. 32 (December 2008) (web-only, print issue
cancelled)

For the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, Akron, Ohio has always been a hometown in
permanent decline, a place she fled for England. Now America’s greatest ex-pat
rock ‘n’ roller sees the future in her past: a reborn urban core where
counter-culture businesses, including her own new restaurant (vegan, of course),
are helping restore progressive community to a downtown trashed by short-sighted
greed. That sense of small-is-better renewal runs through her band’s new album,
which features the playing of James Walbourne, an acclaimed young rockabilly
guitarist who joins Hynde here for an exclusive conversation with Arthur’s
Oliver Hall.

Photography by Lauren Bilanko.

Chrissie Hynde is in Hollywood on a short promotional tour of the United States
to promote the new Pretenders album, Break Up the Concrete, which comes with a
piece of seed paper that will grow flowers. Hynde likes to joke that the paper
contains high-quality cannabis seeds, but my feverish experiments have yielded
naught, perhaps because the “soil” in my neighborhood is plaster sand and the
“water” is pure chlorine bleach. Just the sort of ungreen conditions of city
life that Hynde wants to break up. Accompanying her on this trip is the
Pretenders’ brilliant new guitarist, James Walbourne, fresh off of stints
playing with The Pogues and Jerry Lee Lewis. Walbourne, a contagiously excited
Brit in his late 20s, is about to join us here in their hotel room, and Hynde
wants to make sure I’m going to bring him into the conversation when he arrives.
“This magazine is different, so you don’t have to do the Chrissie Hynde Story,”
she says.

For this tour Hynde and Walbourne have been playing mostly acoustic sets in
radio stations and record stores. In L. A., they played at Amoeba Music and made
an unannounced appearance at the McCabe’s Guitar Shop 50th anniversary show at
UCLA. They briefly shook up the sleepy programming at KCRW, and I met them
shortly after they’d performed on Sex Pistol Steve Jones’s local radio show,
Jonesy’s Jukebox. At Amoeba, Hynde took the stage and declared “I’m a wreck”
before undoing the top button of her jeans. The Amoeba show and the KCRW
appearance were delivered from a fiery fuck-you-it’s-live point of view. The
shows were a thrill, since Hynde’s voice sounds gorgeous as ever, and because if
she occasionally got lost trying to remember one of her lyrics—which is not hard
to do when your lyrics have as many non sequiturs as a Beckett play—Walbourne
would improvise their way back to the song.

Chrissie Hynde’s voice as a writer and a singer is a hell of a thing. You could
talk about the dramatic range of a voice that can sneer “You’re gonna make some
plastic surgeon a rich man” and break your heart with “Kid” on the same album,
or you could talk about her expert control of tone and pitch and the effect of
her voice on an audience, or you could talk about her vocal tremolo, which
immediately distinguishes her from other rock singers—you could talk about all
these things, and I hope that you will, but the cold fact remains: your band
will never, ever be able to pull off “Tattooed Love Boys.” For my part, I
suspect that Hynde’s performances are so emotionally affecting because she has
never given up on the hard work of trying to imagine a public domain in which
she and her art and her bandmates and her audience might more perfectly coexist.
On their 1984 recording of Hynde’s song “My City Was Gone,” the Pretenders
depict what it feels like to return home and find yourself in an
urban-renewalized ghost town, where all local distinguishing marks have been
erased or paved over, and everyone works at the same shopping mall. I imagine
that if the late, great radical environmentalist Edward Abbey were still above
ground, he would be merrily whistling the new Pretenders song “Break up the
Concrete” while jackhammering up great chunks of the interstate and throwing
beer cans heedlessly over his shoulder.

Continue reading →
October 26, 2021 by Jay Babcock Categories: Arthur No. 32 (web-only, Dec 2008),
Lauren Bilanko, Oliver Hall | Tags: Akron, Arthur Archive, Break Up the
Concrete, Chrissie Hynde, James Walbourne, Lauren Bilanko, Music, Ohio, Oliver
Hall, PETA, Pretenders, rock & roll | 3 Comments


DAN DEACON TALKS TO JAY BABCOCK ABOUT HIS NEW TENT, HIS NEW ALBUM AND HIS NEW
LIVE SHOW (ARTHUR ONLINE, 2009)

Originally published online April 5, 2009

Dan Deacon at the controls (“photo by Zardoz, as interpreted by James Petz“)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A NEW STAGE
Experimental pop musician/joybringer Dan Deacon on his new tent, his new album
and his new live approach
by Jay Babcock

(April 3, 2009)

From Dan Deacon’s page on the Wham City site:

> “Hi. I’m Dan Deacon. Before moving to Baltimore I went to college and grad
> school at the Conservatory of Music at SUNY Purchase. For the past four years
> I have been touring a collection of pieces for voice, electronics and
> audience. In my spare time I enjoying booking shows at various weird places in
> Baltimore. I’m looking forward to touring less and finishing up a series of
> pieces for large ensemble. The future surrounds us. Let us begin.”

Dan Deacon has just begun his North American tour following the release of his
second album. Released last week by the essential Carpark record label, Bromst
an ebullient, anthemic, densely stacked minimalist rave monster recorded with
“real” instruments, including a player piano. Bromst is bonkers in the best way:
I hear Eno vocals, Koyaanisqatsi-era Philip Glass, Terry Riley, gamelan, Spike
Jones, vintage video games, put-your-hand-in-the-air-and-knock-on-that-door
techno, organized surges, simple chord progressions embedded in layers of drums
and piano notes. (Stream Bromst songs at dan deacon myspace.)

Bromst is a unique album made by a uniquely multi-gifted artist: a class clown
from music composition class, a populist intellectual with a fiercely whimsical
streak, a serious composer who can elevate an on-the-edge-of-danger dance party
into mass communion through charisma, imaginative group gameplaying and a
certain fearlessness. If you haven’t witnessed Deacon live, check out the two
youtubes included in the text below; in one, audience members sing from sheet
music in a basement party; in the second…well, to write about it would be to
reduce it. Goosebumps, baby! I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a performing artist
so adept in creating group public joy without pandering—or one whose abilities,
interests and ethic are so perfectly attuned to what the times call for.

There’s a lot more to say about what Deacon is up to, and why it’s so vital and
inspiring. (A good place to start is this extremely perceptive thinkpiece by
Rjyan Kidwell; also check out C & D’s interview in Arthur No. 27 with Deacon and
director Jimmy Joe Roche about their “Ultimate Reality” film, available here.) I
wanna wait to get my thoughts together on all of this til next week, though, cuz
this weekend I am venturing for the first time to psychedelic Baltimore to see
Deacon and his new 14-piece ensemble perform Saturday night as part of the 6th
Annual Transmodern Festival.

But there’s no reason not to post the following conversation now, conducted by
phone at 11am on consecutive days in February from two secret locations in
Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood (thanks Geoff, thanks Jack). Dan was waking
up in Baltimore. The first day, midway through an answer to my second question,
he confided, “I’m having a weird allergic reaction. The whole right side of my
body is swelled up and I can’t open my eye all the way.” But I thought he was
talking perfect sense and he was up for it, so we kept on rolling. The following
is a condensation from those two conversations; any mistakes in transcription
are mine, and will be corrected…

Arthur: That’s a great, evocative album cover. How did you come up with it?

Dan Deacon: I was camping with my dad this summer and one morning I woke up
early, because you tend to wake up early when you’re camping, and the light was
coming through the tent and it just looked really nice. I started thinking about
tents, as a structure, as a place in which to live, and being a very old, old
thing. I thought, I’d love to make a tent, an old fancy European-looking tent
that you’d see in a movie like Lord of the Rings, where they have that kind of
encampment set-up and some of them are just shitty tents, shantytowns, and then
there’s the beautiful one. I realized I knew nothing about making a tent, I know
nothing about construction, or sewing, so I designed it on paper first, then
started to build it. It became this nightmarish project, but I’m really glad I
did it. It’s 10 foot x 10 foot x 10 foot, it’s a hexagon-shaped tent, so it’s
ten feet between opposite points of the hexagon, then ten feet straight up. I
also wanted something [for the album cover] that could exist in reality, so if I
used it in the live show, the audience could have some sort of connectivity to
it, which a lot of what the record is about—about interconnectivity and feeling
attached to things that otherwise feel abstract or you have no attachment for.

Continue reading →
October 26, 2021 by Jay Babcock Categories: BLOG, Jay Babcock | Tags: Arthur
Magazine, Baltimore, Brian Eno, Dan Deacon, gamelan, Jay Babcock, Jimmy Joe
Roche, Koyaanisqatsi, Phish, Spike Jones, Ultimate Reality, Wham City, Zardoz |
3 Comments


LIFE DURING WARTIME: FROM THE 2003 DIARIES OF DAVID BYRNE (ARTHUR, 2003)

Originally published in Arthur No. 5 (July 2003)

Life During Wartime

From the journals of musician-artist-activist David Byrne…

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These are excerpts from a journal/diary. Obviously I’ve taken out all the
personal stuff and left only the notes referring to the war, or rather, the
invasion of Iraq. This makes me seem like a bit of an obsessive-all the rest of
my life has been edited out and only the anger and paranoia remains. I’d prefer
a life with the anger and paranoia edited out, but it seems that won’t be in the
cards this year.

Feb 9 

Dinner at GM’s birthday at Savoy-lots of New York Times, New Yorker and other
writers present whom I didn’t know—Don DeLillo at least I knew. A situation
where I couldn’t jump up and leave easily, so I guess I wasn’t going to manage
to sneak out and see those Icelandic bands downtown. Surprisingly, after some
chit-chat with my surrounding diners the topic inevitably turned to the war and
soon got very heated. The New Yorker writer next to me, for example—a young,
attractive woman-said, “the French are always a problem, they’ve CAUSED this
problem; so many of these Arab intellectual problem people studied there, and
their philosophers, Derrida etc., are all sympathetic”—this is a paraphrase, but
you get the idea. It just went on from there. A surprising number surrounding me
were gung-ho for the war. None are dummies, but it’s surprising how they toe the
Bush propaganda line and don’t see it as propaganda at all. I actually shouted
at one point (saying it wasn’t just the French—if you’re going to slander those
who disagree with this policy then you’d better deal with the Russians and
Germans too at this point) Their position is that the success of the U.S.
intervention in Bosnia justifies the use of military intervention, but that took
place after how many years of vacillating, and with at least a few other nations
backing, no? Milosevic and co were actually still involved in their ethnic
cleansing campaign when NATO began bombing. Korea and Turkey are now additional
powder kegs in the conversations, both of them confusing issues and mostly
avoided. Yikes, what’s going on here? 

It is amazing that this topic dominates bourgeois dinner conversation–as it
should–but still, it’s a strange new world. Again, I don’t feel comfortable
here. Yikes. 

Feb 12 

Well, I guess I felt pushed over the edge by last night’s dinner. Decided to see
if I can take out a New York Times full-page anti-war ad and recruit other
musicians to lend their names and cash, as the thing might cost as much as 80
thousand!! Josh at Luaka Bop has been helpful, thanks to his experience with the
Beasties’ Tibet efforts. Danielle and I did a rough layout, and Josh brought in
a coordinator, a guy named David Fenton who’s done lots of political ads–and in
this case Fenton had just met with Russell Simmons, who guaranteed that he,
Jay-Z, Mos Def and Puff Daddy are in. Move On (the organization that has
organized some of the marches) has agreed to cover half the cost if need be,
which is a relief. 

Osama is using the impending war to his own advantage (despite his undisguised
dislike for Saddam) and is calling for more attacks on the U.S. Our government’s
response is to suggest that we stock up on water and duct tape.

Continue reading →
October 25, 2021 by Jay Babcock Categories: Arthur No. 5 (July 2003), David
Byrne | Tags: Arthur Magazine, David Byrne, David Fenton, Don DeLillo, Iraq War,
Russell Simmons | Leave a comment


TEN THINGS THAT I’VE LEARNED FROM THE SUFIS, BY WENDY JEHANARA TREMAYNE
(ARTHUR, 2013)

Originally published in Arthur No. 35 (August, 2013) as a sidebar to What the
Sufis Taught Me

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Ten Things That I’ve Learned From the Sufis

1. A remedy for boredom: Consider that our senses provide awareness for the
universe. For transcendence, freedom is form.

2. Life is a bathhouse. Someone is likely to steal your flip-flops. If you feel
impatient waiting for the world to value the knowledge that you value, you may
discover a reserve of compassion by considering that ignorance is a shield for
that which we are unable to face. 

3. For the Sufi there is no right and wrong. Life is a dynamic, ever-changing
context. This can be confusing. How does one know the right way? Consider a
simple rule: Dismiss that which insults your soul. 

4. That which we cannot forgive we are forced to carry.

5. What is savored by gratitude is burned into the soul of the world and lasts
forever. 

6. The force of attraction that limits us is our interest in the world. Consider
the words of Rumi: “We are that which we seek.” 

7. Look for what is arising.

8. The things that change are not our real life. Within us is another body that
belongs to the changeless, and it is fully satisfying. For as long as we are
embedded in what is transitory we are only creatures. 

9. The soul is perfect—nothing you do will ever change that you cannot diminish
it.

10. Life lives—only death dies. 

 —WJT



October 25, 2021 by Jay Babcock Categories: Arthur No. 35 (August 2013), Wendy
Jehanara Tremayne | Tags: Arthur Magazine, Sufis, Wendy Tremayne | 1 Comment


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