Artists' Might, Prophets' Songs
“Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.”― Alan Moore
I have started to write so many newsletter openings over the past few weeks…but between work travel and just being completely knocked out by the elections the few lines I got down never went anywhere…every letter I typed seemed so damn heavy and what my fingers wanted to keep typing over and over again was: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK anon anon FUCK FUCK FUCK. AND FUCK FUCK!!! Feel free to type along with me in the comments below.
And yes, pretty much all avenues of journalistic thought are focused on either the dark cloud coming (and the again daily batshit headlines) or making (non) sense about what we all just witnessed the election results right now., and for good reason. And there is certainly nothing I can do to add to the conversation in a significant way like a Seth Masket at Tusk can or a Van Jones can. But I will say this, there are many things that can had must get us through the times ahead, and for me the top two are: LOVE and ART. Love for ourselves and each other. Arts and the artistic achievements that will inspire us and command us to keep going. The great artists of our day will provide the insight, the distractions, the humor. The great artists of our day will do the needed work to offer us visions of our future, both good and bad, and remind us what we are wanting to get out of this mortal coil, for we only live once (at least in the bodies we currently inhabit) and we deserve better (we deserve the best). As the Yin/Yang symbol reminds us, even in the darkness of darkness there is a light. We need to be each other’s light, and we need the artistic light that can ignite our realities faster than politics, more powerfully than a single elected official.
We do not elect our artists. We support them by celebrating their work, investing in their work, and uplifting their voices. The focus of this newsletter from the beginning has been to amplify the stories and brilliance of the artistic mind, and as I wearily stare into the abyss, one thing that I know will keep me going is the deep dive searching for the best works, the most interesting stories, the lesser-known brilliance that is ever present on this earth. As the CEO of an arts and culture organization, I know that one of the first things that go during these bad political moments is the funding for the arts, even though it is in these times that we must double…triple….down on them. The Signal continues to commit...doubly…triply…to offer a glimpse into the best parts of our civilization and the potential we still must overcome. To dream, to reimagine, to resist, and keep moving forward, forward through the fire, forward through the darkness.
So since it has been a while, let’s dig in (typing these words as I am listening to the stunning new Cure record, Songs of the Lost World, which harkens back to the times of Pornography…maybe a little Disintegration as well. How does Robert Smith’s voice not show any sign of aging after all these years?)….
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch: I just finished reading this novel, the winner of the 2023 Booker (I am a little behind) which is both devastating and brilliant; best I have read this year thus far. It takes place in a dystopian version of Ireland but seems more of a warning for those of us nail-biting here in America. The rise of totalitarianism. The rise of paranoia and government abductions and civilian torture, told through the eyes of Eilish Stack, a mother of four and a daughter of a father with deep dementia (which adds such a crazy layer to the chaos). Lynch drives a masterfully written story that never stops moving, that never steps back the tension, with moments so dark and so unexpectedly tragic that at times I had to put the book down and breath.
Not Lucky To Dream by Gravel Springs: OK…this is a video from the band I am in with Luther Dickinson, a song from our new record Crow’s Nest Mediations. It was Jim Dickinson’s birthday last week, on the 15th, and we put together this video homage to him and his land. The song itself samples bits from Jim’s spoken word record atop of angelic drones we created, as Luther gracefully answers his father with guitar picked lullabies. Luther went to Jim’s studio, Zebra Ranch, in Coldwater Mississippi last month and made short films of the land, inside the studio, outside on the brink of a forest. We took pieces of the film, sewed them together for this video (my first foray into video editing). Miss Jim. World boogie is coming.
The Moon Is In The Wrong Place by Shannon and the Clams: I am (again) totally late to the party with this record, which came out in May of this year. While driving kids around to various activities recently, I heard the title track on KALX, Berkeley (Go Bears) which led me to hit the streamers to listen to the rest of the record. Even upon the first listen, I had a hunch at the meaning of the song. Lost love. A little over two years ago, Shannon Shaw lost her fiancé, Bay Are musician and artist Joe Haener, when he was killed in a car crash near his farm in Oregon. This record, it turns out, is a product of the grieving process for her (and her band, who were also friends with her fiancé). I knew Joe through my work with the Gris Gris. He was the main drummer. Shannon and the Clams’ garage-rock 50’s sound (mixed with a little Phil Spector and a pinch of Broadway musical sparkle) is a perfect conduit for the sentimentality and sadness being worked through with Shannon Shaw’s vocals even more soulful and powerful than on past championed releases. Highlight tracks: The Vow, So Lucky, Oh So Close, Yet So Far and the title track…but the whole record is great.
Longlegs and The Substance: Horror is definitely alive and well in the 2024s if you just take these two films as representing the moment. Both horrifying, both with batshit crazy moments (Barb and I marveled at the last 20 unexpected minutes of The Substance), with incredible performances by its stars, with standouts by Nick Cage (Longlegs) and Demi Moore (Substance)—who both deserve Oscar nominations. Most horror is so formulaic these days; it is nice to see two films that defy expectations, that scare with a true uncertainty of what is to come, that allow themselves that seep into a darkness still unknown to even the deep diving enthusiast. KEEP HORROR DEMENTED!
Anthony Ausgang’s Swizzle Comix Number 3: Psychedelic Low Brow artist Anthony Ausgang recently released a new “comic” featuring the mini paintings he has been making of late. Ausgang has always created both large, epic paintings that command high prices and art that is very much more affordable. These small paintings, often 2” by 3”, have been popping up for sale on his Instagram account. They continue his long study of DMT-morphing cat heads, my favorites always being when they twist into pure abstraction. I grabbed one a few years ago. The magazine seems a showcase for a gaggle of the recently painted offerings (as well as some other articles and interviews that Ausgang has curated). Go here to find out how to grab a signed comic.
The Jeff Maser Bookseller List
This bookseller’s auction is always enticing to look through, even if nothing is ordered…even if it was not on your agenda to spend on your favorite writer this month. But seeing their book covers and discovering previously unknown releases (very often releases that were limited back in their day) is magical; the auction becomes a temporary on-line exhibit!
A Matter of Folklife and Death
For Halloween the Folklife Center of the Library of Congress posted a series of graveyard photos that they have in their holdings. Some, like the one above, are truly Lovecraftian haunting. They also list several past projects that tie into ghosts and death and graves including an incredible study by Sarah Bryant called Funeral Service Workers in the Carolinas where she spent time talking to such service workers and hearing their stories. That being said…does anyone love The Loved One film as much as I do? And while we are on the subject of graveyards, The Sun magazine’s interview with Suzanne Kelly “on Green Burial and the Embrace of Mortality” is a truly fascinating read and for me, somewhat of a gamechanger (I might not desire to compost my body into the flower beds behind my house, but a green burial seems more and more like the right thing to do).
Don’t Mention ‘The C- Word’ – Sonic Boom Talks Festive Records, John Lennon & Mind Expansion
I have loved Sonic Boom since first hearing The Spacemen 3 in the mid-eighties. I loved him so much that when the opportunity rose, I signed his band Spectrum to Warner Bros. where he made the fantastic but major label beguiling Forever Alien. Over the years he has done incredible work in the field of music production, of deep experimentation and, especially over the past half-decade, once again making records that are so very good. This interview was done on the eve of his release A Peace Of Us, a holiday record he is just releasing with Dean Wareham & Britta Phillips of Luna. The first few songs out there already including a beautiful cover, and possible new holiday staple, of Snow Is Falling in Manhattan by the late David Berman (you can read an interview with Dean and Britta in the above Ausgang mag).
The Most Valuable Releases Sold on Discogs in October 2024
Want to make some good lovin’ with a soul single….for $7,000? In that case, see if discogs has another copy of the 1980s release Take This Love by Mark IV for sale! Or maybe just search out an Al Green record or a Peaches and Herb record for $10 somewhere. For just a little less, you can get the legendary Bad Brains Pay To Cum original single…for $6500…which is ALMOST worth it given how insanely incredible it is. Crazy bunch of records at crazy prices…but hard to not ponder each one to figure out: how did THIS record come to be worth so much.
Shel Talmy, Early Producer for the Who and Kinks and a Pioneer of the Brit Beat Sound, Dies at 87
I befriended Shel at Punkin Pie’s Tuesday nights at the Backstage Bar in Beverly Hills. Pretty much blind, Shel would be sitting at a table waiting for a good conversation, waiting to tell fans like me how he went to England with a made up story of producing greats like The Beach Boys (bringing the original acetates that were given to him by producer/friend Nick Venet as proof), and how it landed him early gigs producing likes of The Who and The Kinks. He invited me to his studio, where he played me older and more recent productions (I would sit there having my mind blown). Talmy would go on to help make the London sixties sound, producing hits with The Easybeats (from Australia), The Creation and so many other lesser known artists. My friend Alec Palao compiled an excellent collection from Talmy’s vault of lesser known singles called Planet Mod (Brit Soul, R&B And Freakbeat From The Shel Talmy Vaults) that is very much worth a listen.
Good Bones
By Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful
“My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.”
― Alan Moore
****HEROIC IMAGE USED FOR NEWSLETTER BY WAYNE COYNE
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