The show is over and we took a day to see Philly. We planned 3 things for the day: The Fabric Workshop Museum, the main Philly Museum, and a Phillies game.
The Fabric workshop is great. The current show is a collaboration btwn the FWM and the New Temporary Contemporary and it represents 4 artists currently living in Philadelphia. Tristin Lowe’s big, inflated felt sperm whale is fun for its size and texture. The permanent collection has some recognizable names (kiki smith, william wegman, felix gonzolez tores…) that don’t usually use fabric as their main med., here have used fabric. And in a separate space, down the street a few doors, a Ryan Trecartin exhibit. Real good.
The Philadelphia Museum is a great, big museum. They have a really impressive collection of stuff that we’re not really into right now. We mainly wanted to see their big collection of Duchamp…all but two small pieces had been sequestered behind a velvet rope for an upcoming “show” featuring Duchamp. Sweet.
We got to the Phillies game early because the Museum disappointed us. Its a new park and its real clean and nice. Our seats were as nose-bleeding as can be, but they were still good seats. Unfortunately, we were sitting in the middle of a section bought out by Drexel University and students were coming and going and shifting and craning and talking about professors and classes (in super nerdy tones with sprinkled “dude”s). We left in the bottom of the 6th.
Reporting live from the floor in Philly. In the Convention Center, in a “booth”, surrounded by “crafters”. This is the last of 3 days and its been going real good. We’ll be coming home with representation in Santa Cruz, Boston, Brooklyn, Philly, Delaware, and a lot more. Check out the featured bike plate at the entrance of the Convention Center (pic. above).
Sitting in a Convention Center is not the best way to see a city, but we’re sticking round another day so’s we can see some (it’s the first time either of us have been to this town). We’re planning to go to the Museum to see DuChamp, the Fabric Workshop to see Ryan Trecartin, and Citizens Bank Park to see the Phillies.
The best thing about this setting so far, is Reading Terminal Market. Its next to the hotel and across from the Convention Center. One of the worst things about being a big business person, all on the road and things, is eating right and keeping that good digestion going. This Terminal market has it all, the only problem is that it closes up at 6.
I got beat up today in the studio. The above photo is one of many puddles the big Dove squeezed out of me today. Oh, I lost it a couple of times. If there was a nanny-cam on JB today and JB was of interest to the public, you could see some funny footy on ET tonight. Maybe someday.
Monday night Deer Tick played in Lexington at Al’s bar. Deer Tick is from Providence, RI and that’s almost enough to give a band a chance because it probably means they went to RISD and that may be enough, though my ears and eyes are leading me to believe that Providence and RISD’s numbered days are done. Poppy sounds have replaced some kind of real energy. Opinion. Plus, poppy doesn’t always mean poopy. There’s a time for everything under heaven. Fort Thunder and scenes like it must move on…
To Lexington. Lexington is not Louisville. Like I said about Bonnie Prince Billy, he disrespected Lexington (favours Louisville), and Lexington doesn’t have much to brag about. Neither does my hometown of Toledo. But, do you really want a lot of art lessons, nice shopping, and a waterfront view to produce your art. Stuff that speaks comes from the gut and the gut doesn’t look like sunny San Diego, it looks like my floor today after punching inanimate objects and cursing to nothing. I’m not going to come up with new great ideas from drinking fine wine. Nossir, bourbon heals them wounds and does them patchins. KY is bourbon country. Land of the most wretched, outcast, independent folks. Welcome to Dovetail. Grab hold of the tail of the great forgiving bird and let it take you home.
In these days of mp3’s and streams and music industry confusion, I am super happy to report a new-found interest in college radio. WRFL, the UK radio station has some good programming. I’d like to talk on some Lexington original music soon, but for now, check out WRFL, and if you have a better station with some good music to stream–lets me know. Sometimes, even the best gets smooth n’ jazzy.
Nobody got burned. At least not literally. At least not yet.
We had a big old time this 4th of July, with an extensive family reunion attached. People came in from all over the place and we all got re-aqua-tinted. Many were at least moderately interested in Dovetail’s goings-on, so we got to give a couple tours of our shanty studio and sold a few things too.
Now that the busy weekend is behind us we are looking ahead to the big show in Philadelphia at the end of the month. The closer it gets the more mailings we get that urge us to get everything ready and make certain all our doves are in a row. It seems that its getting bigger and heavier the closer it gets. I hear such doomsday reports in the news that nobody has any money, just IOU’s, and I get down on it, but then I hear some great things like Young Blood in Atlanta is doing great. And we just got a check from OCMA that wasn’t huge, but it was bigger than usual.
So, we’re going and hoping for the best. That’s independence.
Today was a super warm 95 degree’er. Tonight, all humid and the heat is sticking. Around 10:30 p.m., Franny and I went outside to enjoy this ev’ning warmth. Lightning bugs. What a show. I could look up why and how on Wiki…whatnot but I don’ want to. I love it. Its a solar flare of my human heart to see these lil guys tonight.
As a kid, we’d catch them and stick them in a jar. Maybe, sometimes we’d smush them to see what gives. Some of us would feel guilty, and a little sad. Never getting any closer to finding out the truth about how and why they light their lights. They don’t go way up so we confuse them for stars or planes; they stick close to the ground. Bumbling around for clumsy fingers to grab them and explore. They offer themselves as little tiny mystery’s every summer. Little summertime martyrs.
Earlier this evening, I was in the studio doing Dovetail duty, and Franny came walking in thru the dog door like nothing. She’s got some gnarly hairs, all matty and thick. Her eyebrows are bushy. She walks up to me (its darkish because I’m coating screens for printing) with a glowing ember in her eyebrow. I instinctivley grab her head and tug the ember, only to find that its a lightning bug caught in her furry brow. I’d already tugged on it and instead of it burning my fingers it left a mustardy glow; in my head and my heart, I was (like a snapped finger, now and gone) taken back to that little kid grabbing the buggers in my sweaty summery hands. Franny had been out there, doing what? but she brought one in to show.
Of course in these times, I have to run, grab the camera and take a picture. I have to share. You can hardly see it but I put an arrow showing the glow.
Later, I saw this Mos Def video and was glad to see the simplicity and complexity in it that felt a little bit like it matched the earlier experience. Little wings ‘look at what the light did now’ was in my head as I sat down to finish watching the Tigers game and write this, but Mos Def does it. I have to say, I really don’t like that “white people like” blog/book whatever. Its funny for its trueness, but its racist and it makes me think twice about liking stuff when I don’t care who’s black or white or what. I was in NYC with my brother and Gene a long time ago and saw Mos Def on the street. He was wearing some real nicely polished pointy brown shoes.
I saw these candy cigarettes at the gas station a while back. I remember getting them when I was small but I thought they’d been banned. If the FDA gets to control real cigs they should def. be getting these under control too. And look what else, these lil’ hot dogs! Gum that’s shaped and masterfully colored to look like real Lil’ weinies. Sadly, they had no true hot dog flavor.
Speaking of flavor, Will Oldham was back in Lexington this Saturday at a place called the Red Mile (a harness racing track) and the show was in the “round barn”. A sign on the barn it said “standard bred” instead of what we’re used to seeing all over, “thoroughbred”.
Bachelorette, another Drag City band, opened up for them. They (she) are from New Z. and sounded nice. As the bands were making a transition, people from the crowd were wanting to walk behind the stage (closed off by two round tables). People kept walking thru the gaps and the notorious bassist from Chicago, Josh Abrams, got caught up in traffic control. He was in bared feet and had his hands full of one of the tables that started to collapse. He was getting frustrated and waving people off but they kept coming and the table kept sliding down (the legs were folding in on themselves and on Mr. Abrams own legs). I got up to help him out and just as I had a grip he looked at me with a disgusted look of failure and left. I set the table up alone and felt a sense of disappointment. All that struggle to then just bolt.
Bonnie Billy was in rare form. It was the last show of a big tour of 75 shows or something and he was like a kid on the last day of camp. He didn’t want to say goodbye to his good friends (the band). He was in such good spirits that he just kept on going. At one point he asked the crowd if we were still alright, he said he didn’t want it to end and went back to the back of the stage and grabbed his little tote bag. He unpiled his stuff onto the stage and pulled out a dirty looking pair of khaki pants. He dug into the pocket and pulled out a wad of money and handed it to a guy in the front saying “give this to the bar, everybody get a drink on me, get comfortable”. In all my days I never seen that.
Best of all Jim White was on drums. Windmilling his snare shots and smashing the crash with a black-socked foot.
I posted yesterday and erased it because it was too bleak. I was in a blue mood and don’t feel that way now. Its this blogging–I start feeling bad for not writing here and decide to just put something down for the sake of putting it down. So I woke up this morning and decided to self-edit.
I went to Wolf Eyes on Friday night and it was a nice little sonic experience. I say “little” because it wasn’t exactly what my doctor had ordered, but close enough for it being here in town. One fun thing about the show is that they were heading to the town of my origin (Toledo) the next night and then to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit on the 18th to open for Black Dice (careful, the video below may make you dizzy, sick and you might have a small seizure)
What the doctor did order was some Sunn O))), live and in the flesh, but we’ll settle for live Wolfies and recorded Sunn. They give a good explanation of their latest release (Monoliths & Dimensions) “We took an approach concentrating on more of allusion toward the timbre of feedback and the instruments involved, so the piece is really illusory, beautiful and not entirely linear…That said it’s probably the most musical piece we’ve done & also the heaviest, powerful and most abstract set of chords we’ve laid to tape.”
The “doctor” is my unsatisfied mind. Dovetail is feeling the recession a bit, but we’re convinced that the show in Philly this summer will right the ship. But beyond that, is Dovetail scratching the itch that always gets itchy after a bump? Well we’re thinking about staying the course but also about what new directions to take to “keep it fresh”, but not just fresh–make it, ugh, deeper?, better. Things can pretty much always be better. We just don’t want to rest and gather the moss. The sonic booms of some loud, live music helps clear the moss.
Another way of clearing out the cobwebs is to go fast:
On a skateboard or a motorcycle. This is Jason Lee’s commissioned Falcon. He had Ian Barry build him one of the coolest looking bikes I’ve seen. I like Jason Lee as a skater, I’ve seen him act a little, but he’s always been a skater in my mind. I found out about Barry and this Falcon in the latest Garage. The editor starts out the magazine with a letter in which he says something like “I’ve always seen the world as full of those who can weld and those who can’t” and that basically if you can’t weld, you might as well lay down now.
But, he forgot to mention that “weld” could be substituted for “do”. DO anything you want, do it well, get satisfaction from it. If you act (like J. Lee) it affords you the dollars to pay people like Ian to earn a living “doing” what he loves (welding). Without the actor to pay, the welder has a lot of welded stuff laying around which is only “cool” stuff if he also has food in his belly. Admittedly, Ian Barry looks “cooler” in this scene than Jason Lee because he’s the “doer” here. But that’s not fair to all that Jason has done.
Jason Jesse (a completely different ex pro skater) does it all though, so what happens to all this theorizing of “cool”? A satisfied mind, he doesn’t have. He is cool though:
But, mercy. So much about “doing”. And “cool”. I gots to hold on to “Being”. And being with a satisfied mind. Usually that comes from giving and putting aside self for the sake of others.
I’ve not been in the mood for writing for some time. The weather had been super springy (rainy) which is nice, but it has moved my thoughts and actions toward the planning (planting) side of things and not so much the doing (blooming). The sun is out now.
I get down on myself when I don’t feel like I’m being as productive as I think I should be but, I look at the natural cycle and learn that its got to rain if things are going to grow. Not everyone gets to reap all the time, the sowing is important too.
We are proud to be in a new shop here in Lexington, Commotion. She started as a shop for handmade and “eclectic” goods, but as the economy did what it did, she started selling riding clothes on consignment as well. Which is cool considering how many people are having to close up shop these days with no alternatives.
This fella’s name was Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton. He was Tennessee Moonshiner and he was pretty well known. I was researching moonshining and moonshine history yesterday and he came up as the premier example (I was hoping for a KY shiner, but he doesn’t dissapoint). There is a documentary that looks good and tons of articles, blogs and opinions on him out there. It turns out he’d been convicted recently and was supposed to go to prison for 18 months but he was sick and didn’t want to die in jail so he killed himself in March.
