Jun 7, 2009
POSTED BY Jay Babcock
Note: The Arthur Bulletin is sent out every week or so to subscribers. Wanna be on the list? Go here to sign up. Here is the bulletin that was emailed out on Friday…
This email bulletin is sponsored by Alive/Natural Sound Records
“command performance”
the arthur magazine email bulletin no. 000150
june 1, 2009
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Hallo hallo,
1. “THE SUBSTANCE OF THEIR WORLD WAS NOT EARTH, BUT FOREST”
From “The Word for World Is Forest” by Ursula K. Le Guin (1972). An earthling human contemplates the culture of the planet Athshe:
“He had also come to like the Athsheans’ names for their own lands and places, sonorous two-syllabled words: Sornol, Tuntar, Eshreth, Eshsen, Endtor, Abtan, and above all Athshe, which meant the Forest, and the World. So earth, terra, tellus meant both the soil and the planet, two meanings and one. But to the Athsheans soil, ground, earth was not that to which the dead return and by which the living live: the substance of their world was not earth, but forest. Terran man was clay, red dust. Athshean man was branch and root. They did not carve figures of themselves in stone, only in wood.”
2. NOW TRANSMITTING…
“Transmissions From Sinai,” the long-awaited compilation CD curated for Arthur by Al Cisneros (Om, Sleep) is finally available. All pre-orders have been shipped. Only 1,000 copies were manufactured, so if you want one, get thee to the Arthur store and do what you must, posthaste:
The Arthur Store
Cover artwork is by Arik Moonhawk Roper. Features music by Lichens, Linval Thompson, Grouper, Current 93, Scott Kelly, Quix*o*tic, Hush Arbors, Mia Doi Todd, Six Organs of Admittance, Holy Sons, Pantaleimon, Grails, Sir Richard Bishop, J. Mascis, Wino and Alpha & Omega. All proceeds go to supporting Arthur Magazine’s mission.
Al Cisneros sez: “Here are sixteen reports, differing approaches that, through their own individualized methods, access the one ground. It’s a privilege and blessing to have known many of the musicians on this disc, to have shared in song with some, and stages with others. In all cases I have been the healed recipient of their craft sitting alone with my headphones… Here is their auditory journal.”
3. SCENES FROM A RECENT WEEKEND IN BIG SUR
Rainbows projected onto forest trees, ladies collecting giant clovers in the misty mountains for crowns, matthewdavid performing under Katie Byron’s quilt installation, a poster for the Animal Collective show and other images courtesy Arthur’s Psychedelic Healing Visions correspondent, Alia Penner:
http://bit.ly/te8V1
4. COME JOIN US IN OUR GARDEN
This coming Thursday, June 11, Arthur presents an all-ages backyard garden party in Philadelphia featuring performances by four sparkling solo musicians:
* DOUG PAISLEY is perhaps best known as half of the Will Oldham-championed Dark Hand and Lamplight, a live performance collaboration with visual artist Shary Boyle which features Boyle creating live drawings and animating pre-drawn images on an overhead projector while Mr. Paisley sings and plays guitar. Tonight, Doug will be playing melodic country-folk songs from his downhome gem of a debut album, released late last year on No Quarter Records, as well as new songs. Doug’s first LP is an enduring favorite at Arthur Philly HQ.
* GREG WEEKS—the Espers guitarist, producer and record label mogul—makes a rare local solo performance. “Prolly acoustic guitar,” he sez. “Simple and straightforward.”
* Frequent MV & EE collaborator and Child of Microtones scene member WILLIE LANE promises a set of “Epic martian love call transmitted by steel strings & flanger.” Willie’s just-out LP, Known Quantity (Cord Art), is a favorite in many houses. Bull Tonguers Byron Coley and Thurston Moore call it “a total blast. … [H]is playing ranges from Wizz Jones power-pluck at its cleanest to Michael Chapman electro-smear at its phasingest. But Willie knows his stuff cold and this instrumental slide through the gates of Neverland is one of this year’s great rides.”
* SONDRA SUN-ODEON, a New York City-based singer/writer/guitarist best known for her work in Silver Summit, will open the evening with what she calls “a loosely fingerstyle guitar & vocal set conjuring rain…big sad drops of water with dark, hazy, haunting song clouds that speak of death, love, parting, and paradise.”
Vid clips, links and info on how to join us for our first garden party of the summer:
http://bit.ly/syAKK
5. GIVING YOU THE BULL TONGUE SINCE 2002…
Speaking of Byron Coley and Thurston Moore… Although Arthur is on hiatus from print publication, these generous gentlemen enthusiasts are still combing the underground for choice finds to hip curious questing minds to, publishing their survey results more or less every other week in succinct Tongue Top Ten lists on the Arthur blog, loaded with context, illos, covers, vid clips, links to publishers, and whatnot. All Tongues are permanently housed at:
http://www.arthurmag.com/contributors/byron-coley-thurston-moore/
Their latest missive features Dredd Foole, poets Velerie Webber and Elaine Kahn, a book of great American pothead Louis Armstrong’s collage work, a cd compilation of great Colorado punk bands, Flamin’ Groovies’ recent semi-reunion thinger at the Ponderosa Stomp, a Sperm reissue, fantagraphics’ stunning Harvey Kurtzman “Humbug” comics collection, the John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band Live in Toronto ’69 dvd, Manchild comics. Even if that last sentence reads like a lot of (say) Athshean to you, have a read, this Tongue don’t bite!:
http://bit.ly/U9Tnc
6. YOU CAUGHT US SMILING (AGAIN)
The elusive genius (and former radio deejay) Sly Stone recently taped a radio interview, broadcast Memorial Day on kcrw in Los Angeles. What a voice, what stories. The 40-or-so-minute bit includes 4-year-old Sly on vocals on a gospel record done with his family, reminiscences about growing up in black in the white suburbs of late-50s California, building the Family Stone, and the time Sly met Charles Manson at Doris Day’s house. Listen to it here:
http://bit.ly/kSuzP
7. ONCE AGAIN INTO THE ARCHIVES…
* “Blacker Sabbath”: Vintage cover feature for Arthur on doombringers Sunn0))) and Earth by surrealist/horror author Brian Evenson from December, 2005:
http://bit.ly/qxahn
* “Uncle Skullfucker’s Band”: Daniel Chamberlin explains the discreet charm of the Grateful Dead, with illustrations by D.C. Berman (Silver Jews), in this now-landmark piece from Arthur No. 11 (July 2004):
http://bit.ly/MQDHz
* How to get into the Grateful Dead, with sage advice from Geologist (Animal Collective), Erik Davis, Ethan Miller (Comets on Fire, Howlin Rain), N. Shineywater (Brightblack Morning Light), The Seth Man, Barry Smolin, Dan Chamberlin and Michael Simmons (Arthur No. 18, Sept 2005):
http://bit.ly/19w7u8
8. GIMME THAT OLD TIME REGULATION
From The Whiskey Rebellion by William Hogeland (Scribner, 2006):
“The [American] people’s movement had long employed tactics that were extralegal, often illegal, as well as ancient, local and direct, drawn in part from communal forms of regulation in English villages, where wife-beaters, husband-scolders and other irritating neighbors could be hauled from their homes by dancing gangs who shook pebbles in cups, banged shovels on stone, shrieked horribly and shouted obscene improvised rhymes. When new laws had abridged old common-law rights to hunt deer in Windsor Forest, blackfaced gangs had instantly appeared by making it a capital crime merely to blacken your face. In the colonies, Fort Pitt commanders had learned in the 1760s that disguised gangs might waylay officials and attack soldiers, with juries refusing to convict perpetrators. Teams spent days of hard labor felling trees and stacking them high across roads, keeping officialdom out. People made no-buy covenants, boycotting sheriffs’ auctions of foreclosed farms, and they enforced those covenants by making transgressors ride poles in tar and feathers. Judges in remote areas refrained from hearing government suits against tax felons. Crowds in crazy garb closed courts and opened jails to free people imprisoned for debt.”
9. “WEEDS as Foods. WEEDS as Medicine.”
Arthur “Weedeater” columnist Nance Klehm is currently teaching public courses in Chicago. Upcoming:
Sunday, June 7 3-5pm: URBANFORAGE public walk. Meet at the Gold Dome building entrance at Garfield Park. $10-20 suggested donation/person (young kids free).
June 13, 9am-1pm: In-depth URBANFORAGE class 4 – HERBAL SKIN CARE: Infused oils, salves, creams, linaments, compresses
June 20, 9am – 1pm: In-depth URBANFORAGE class 5 – TINCTURES & ESSENCES: Medicinal tinctures, glycerites and flower essences
Registration and further info for walks and classes:
http://spontaneousvegetation.net/urbanforage/
Think cosmically—act bioregionally,
The Arthur Gang
Fishtown * Little Village * Big Sur * wherever you are
Previously on Arthurmag.com: