The Greatness of 2022

Sitting here in cloudy (damn) Palm Springs waiting for Shelldon the giant turtle to come out of his hut for a daily meal as I ponder the year that has just rolled by.  As our world climate is still afire and as our country lived through a continued tumultuous time where it seemed like we had everything to lose (and there were some big losses…and unexpected wins), during an ever-changing Covid climate where risk became more normative: 2022 seemed like the year we came out of our shell (still waiting on the turtle) to continue the good fight, to reconnect with each other, to celebrate, to mourn, to protest…experience…dig in. 

It was a year of seeing friends—giving ‘em deep hugs—realizing that it had been years since the last meeting; it was a year of giving less of a shit about the consequences of going to sweaty music clubs, restaurants, or museum exhibits.  It was a year where work travel once again became “a thing” and many Zoom meetings shifted to being in person. Suddenly, the calendar filled up like in the Time before and juggling was relearned.

And through all the changes and ever evolving realities, the artists, artisans, thinkers, writers, doers, shakers and makers have played such a pivotal role in making this world of ours ever colorful…beautiful…sensical. Here is an incomplete list of my favorite things from 2022…

1. Andytown Coffee Beans: Starting the list off with how I start off every morning, with a cup of coffee as the sun rises. Andytown roasts killer coffee beans, the best I have found (besides the privately roasted beans from friends Mike Furlotti and Don Friend). I loved them when I lived near their flagship store in San Francisco, and I love them via mail-order now.

2. New York Art Exhibits: In 2022 I ventured more frequently into galleries, and while work-tripping in New York, bit out a little time in the apple to dig into some of its fantastically curated shows:

   • Surrealism Beyond Borders (Metropolitan): A survey of Surrealistic movements from around the world, with a deep investigation into the political nature behind the Surrealists (in almost every country) and their work. A highlight of the exhibit is Ted Joans’ Long Distance: a decades-in-the-making exquisite corpse that featured the greatest artists and thinkers (both famous and lesser known) of many eras (Joans died before the piece was completed “a poignant reminder that the project was bigger than one¹” person)

   • Lou Reed: Caught Between The Twisted Stars (New York Public Library): Don Fleming and the team at Lou Reed’s archives have pieced together incredible ephemera taking a unique look at Lou’s artistic life (loaded with listening stations and personal mail). A highlight for me was Doug Yule’s letter to Lou, telling him how much he loved playing with him in the Velvet Underground, understanding they would probably never speak again. Damn, Lou kept EVERYTHING.

   

   Self-Portrait, Marisol (1961-2) from the New York: 1962-1964 exhibit

   • New York: 1962-1964 (The Jewish Museum): My friend Gretchen led me to this deep dive of a show celebrating the abstract painters, both famous and unknown, photographers and illustrators during this pivotal time for art, for New York, for political history.

   • Nick Cave: Forothermore (The Guggenheim): Before the Jewish Museum stop, we ventured to the career retrospective of alien-turned-artist (joke…but maybe not) Nick Cave (not the singer) whose crazy costumes and mutated sculptures showcase a singular vision that cracks the foundation of reality.

     

     Detectorists Andy (Mackenzie Crook) and Lance (Toby Jones)

3. The Detectorists: As the Golden Age of Television keeps marching on—and Barb and I watched some great shows this year including Severance (truly spectacular), The Orville and Better Call Saul—we stumbled upon The Detectorists, a BBC show that aired originally between 2015 and 2017. Following two Metal Detectoring friends looking for treasure, the show became one of my favorites of all time. Quietly paced with David Lynchian humor and strangeness and a hell of a lot of heart, Mackenzie Crook’s creation is a piece of beauty unlike anything else on the tube and he and co-star Toby Jones, who won a BAFTA for his performance, are hilarious characters whose obsession for their hobby is totally relatable to anyone who has an obsession, like record collecting for instance. The show ended in 2017 but a reunion show aired just a few days ago on the 26th and it is a great addition to the Detectorists story, with the crew uncovering something quite incredible…

   

4. Maggot Brain: The last few years have seen a resurgence in music print magazines, including the revamp of Creem (GO Jaan Uhelszki!). Long time publishing vet Mike McGonigal’s Maggot Brain is top of class, each issue packed with great music articles, interviews, commentary and art, this year featuring stories on Lou Reed, Raymond Pettibon, Prog Rock, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Lucy Cahill, a report on the SF Scene (oh yeah), and always words of wisdom from long time McGonigal go-to Lucy Sante.

5. New Music Releases (in no particular order and not including the great music I got to release this year including Seedsmen To The World and the Golem Rescored soundtrack on vinyl)

   • How Do You Burn (The Afghan Whigs)

   • Set Sail (The North Mississippi All-Stars)

   • Goodbye Asshole (Fuckwolf)

   • Luke Schneider Presents Imaginational Anthem Vol. XI: Chrome Universal-A Survey Of Modern Pedal Steel (Various Artists)

     

   • Stranger (Ethan Daniel Davidson)

   • Landwerk No. 3 (Nathan Salsburg)

   • Big Time (Angel Olsen)

   • Mil Coisas Invisíveis (Tim Bernardes)

   • Radio MDMA (Greg Ashley)

   • I Ran Down Every Dream (Tommy McLain)

6. Old Music: Reissues and records from another time I could not get off of the turntable (again, did not include reissues that I worked on like Otha Turner’s Everybody Hollerin’ Goat)

   

   • Unravelled: 1981 - 2002 (Tall Dwarfs’ career retrospective boxset)

   • Planet Mod: Brit Soul, R&B And Freakbeat From The Shel Talmy Vaults (Various Artists)

   • Live In Japan (John Coltrane)

   • The Terror (The Flaming Lips)

   • Bare Bodkin (The Ophelias): New release of old recordings

   • Lemmings (Bachdenkel)

     

   • Revelations (Albert Ayler)

   • Big Bill Broonzy Sings Country Blues (Big Bill Broonzy)

   • Groundation (Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of the Rastafari)

   • Spilt Milk (Peter Astor)

7. The Drone: With every sunrise, with every passing day, I find myself gravitating to those records that contain ambient drones and music that pushes limits. The Terry Jennings release threw me down a minimalism rabbit hole and thus 2022 clocked in a lot of hours of droned-out, layered, atmospheric sounds to help floss the mind:

   • Living Torch (Kali Malone)

   • Two Sisters (Sarah Davachi)

   • Piece for Cello and Saxophone (Terry Jennings)

     

   • Occam XXV (Éliane Radigue & Frédéric Blondy)

   • Japanese Cassette (Tom Recchion)

   • Conversion (Jacob Kirkegaard)

   • In The White Silence (John Luther Adams)

   • Transpandorem (UnicaZürn)

   • The Great Confrontation (Chip Kinman)

8. The Studs Terkel Radio Archive: I find myself going back to this on-line archive and continually diving into the wealth of incredible interviews Terkel did over his career. If the word ARCHIVE was exchanged with PODCAST it would be a world-wide hit. My recent favorite “episodes” include his interviews with: Allen Ginsberg, Robert Morley (hilarious), Toni Morrison (who reads from her then-current book Sula), and James Baldwin (which I keep going back to).

   

9. The Andy Warhol Diaries and The Fire Within: These two documentaries are both beautiful and meditative journeys into their respective subject matter. The former using modern technology to recreate Andy Warhol’s voice as he reads his diaries giving us details into the life of the giant yet enigmatic artist. And with the latter, The Fire Within, Werner Herzog celebrates the lives of volcano-chasers Maurice and Katia Krafft through his thoughtful analysis and perfect visual curation from their hours upon hours of footage.

10. Hiking: The trails of Mount Tamalpais continue to inspire and challenge regularly, especially the walk from my house to the top peak, that I did several times over the year and cannot recommend more highly (via the Collier Trail). This past year I hiked the Okolehao and Hihimanu Trail in Northern Kauai which was a breathtaking, muddy (MUDDY) hike through a deep tropical forest.

11. Pamela Soap: The farmers market in the Inner Sunset of San Francisco is both small and mighty, featuring some of the greatest tomatoes, grapefruits, and honey I have ever found. The Pamela’s Soap stand changed my life, with homemade soup that is the best I have come upon, featuring incredible ingredients that are nourishing for the skin without the gross perfumeyness, with specific bars that help those of us inflicted with skin issues (like my psoriasis).

12. Live Music: While I missed more live music than I saw (damn, I wish I had seen the Bjork show) here are some great concerts (both public and private) that I did attend:

    • The Flaming Lips at the Warfield (I watched my kids have their minds blown)

    • ‘Round Midnight Reconsidered at Light Rail Studios: John Schott’s 8-hour 14 piece orchestral reworking of the Thelonious Monk piece (my mind was blown)

      

    • Taj Mahal at Stern Grove (Stern Grove is such a jewel to the Bay Area)

    • The Afghan Whigs at The Great American Music Hall

    • The Who at the Golden 1 Center

    • Kash Killion at Creek Park Stage in San Anselmo

    • Six Organs of Admittance on the James Irvine Trail

      

    • Fuzzy Sounds: Seedsmen To The World/Vetiver/Paula Frazer/Infinite River/S. Glass/Richard Streeter at the Vogue Theater

    • Kool and the Gang/Tower of Power/Kenny Loggins/Lionel Ritchie at Doug Goldmans’ 70th

    • RL Boyce/Emmy Lou Harris at Ethan Davidson’s 50th

13. The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent: Our Nicolas Cage fascination continues with this hilarious film where Cage plays….himself, in all of his craziness.

    

14. KALX, 90.7 FM: One of the best parts about moving to the North Bay was being able to tune back in to KALX again in the car, clearly…and the station has been producing great radio this past year with DJs like Tiger Lily, your Tumble Weed, Mike Burma and so many others, playing incredible music of all shapes and sizes, places, styles, decades. Every time I listen, I get turned on to something new, something I need to have in my life. College Radio is alive with the KALX.

15. The Sun, The New York Review of Books, The Alta Journal: While I had a hard time connecting with a fiction book that I loved this year (just bad luck and a lot of trying) my tried and true magazines continued to offer great articles, poetry, fiction, painting and photography to keep the electrical circuits of the mind fresh and excited.

    

16. Birdman Records: For me, a meaningful part of the year was starting up my old label Birdman Records once again, reissuing the Otha Turner record on vinyl…releasing the debut of Seedsmen To The World as well as my late brother-n-law Craig Bersche’s record Words and Melodies (it just came out a few weeks ago). And next year is already looking great with the debut album from Infinite River (and their second record later in the year), the newest from Michael Morley’s solo project Gate, a reissue of Tom Recchion’s Chaotica, and digital releases from Bengt Olsson blues recording catalog…and more in the making.

17. David Brendel: I am blown away at how powerfully yet quietly this artist/journalist/editor helps put together things of beauty, highlighted this year with his recreation of Hal Willner’s recording studio that is a bookend to the current Lou Reed exhibit at the New York Public Library, and his curation of the best from the New Yorker archives for The Editor’s Burial, a book he put together with Wes Anderson around the release of The French Dispatch.

Kids Milestones: Asher learning Stairway To Heaven on his Ukulele while achieving major progress in both his baseball and tennis game (the latter: giving me a run for it on the court). Kaya playing the role of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz for the local 8-18 productions, and Princess Fiona in her school production of Shrek. And as the above picture shows, it makes us so happy that the two of them are such great friends who write songs together, play together and make each other laugh all day every day.

THE MOST READ SIGNAL POSTS OF 2022:

1. The Genius Of Monk

2. Voices Green And Purple (A Look At The Greatest Psychedelic Recordings)

3. Tommy McLain's Swapified Regal Return

4. Because The Night

5. The Spell of Screaming Jay

THANK YOU FOR READING!~!~!~!~!

This newsletter is dedicated to my wife Barbara who puts up with me taking the time to publish it! She is the best (of every year)

1. https://4columns.org/d-souza-aruna/surrealism-beyond-borders