Monthly Archive for June, 2009

Sonic Youth are one of many artists included in the All Tomorrow’s Parties Film, which is on a UK tour  from 23 October 2009, prior to the DVD release on 2 November 2009.

Condensing 800 hours of footage from 200 contributors including fans and musicians that have attended recent festivals, All Tomorrow’s Parties is the result of a project to document the legendary cult music festival from it’s beginnings. With key contributions from co-director Jonathan Caouette (Tarnation) and cinematographer Vincent Moon (The Take Away Shows, Arcade Fire) and featuring amongst others: Belle And Sebastian, Grizzly Bear, Sonic Youth, Battles, Portishead, Daniel Johnston, Grinderman, David Cross, Animal Collective, The Boredoms, Mogwai, Slint, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Gossip, GZA, Seasick Steve, Iggy and the Stooges, F**k Buttons, Shellac, Patti Smith John Cooper Clark and Nurse With wound.

The film’s been described as “a rousing, kaleidoscopic celebration of the seaside indie-rock festival” (Time Out), and together with Les Savy Fav’s jaw dropping stage antics, audiences will experience what happens when experimental film and music collide in these one off special events. The ‘one night only’ theatrical tour, with Les Savy Fav, will visit Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds and London from Oct 23 – 28, with special events also taking place in Brighton, Bristol and Hull.
The tour includes a film screening plus Les Savy Fav plus a DJ set by ATP founder Barry Hogan. Tickets. Trailer.

Fri Oct 23 – Manchester Deaf Institute
Sat Oct 24 – Glasgow ABC 2
Mon Oct 26 – London Forum
Tue Oct 27 – Leeds TJ’s Woodhouse Club

Thurston appears on the new White Out record, as does Jim O’Rourke. Lee is on the new My Cat is an Alien record.

White Out’s ‘Senso’ is a live recording from two shows at the heralded and, sadly shut, Tonic club in NYC December 18, 2004. It was a lovely evening when O’Rourke and Moore, both of whom had played with White Out, but never together, would set the controls for the heart of the universe. Each set was its own distinct drama and captured the four players in a unified mind meld bringing the audience with them on a spirit-high journey. Info.

On June 17, 2008, the exhibition Sonic Youth etc.: Sensational Fix opened at LiFE in Saint-Nazaire, France, with a focus on their multi-disciplinary activities since 1981–collaborations with visual artists, filmmakers, designers, and musicians, as well as other works selected by the band.

As part of the exhibition project, My Cat Is An Alien performed on stage with their long-time collaborator Ramona Ponzini (Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, Black Magic Disco, Z’ev) singing Japanese, Michael Morley of New Zealand’s free noise band Dead C, and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth.

Exhibition curator Roland Groenenboom recalls: “Michael Morley joined My Cat Is An Alien and Ramona Ponzini on stage for an improv piece. They were already way into developing it when, to their surprise, Lee Ranaldo picked up the guitar that Maurizio had left lying on stage when he moved on to playing percussion, which only made the already phenomenal sonic achievement even denser.”

Stills from the live footage shot by Groenenboom appear on the color insert. During the performance, Roberto shot photos with a Poloroid camera supplied by LiFE’s director Christophe Wavelet–what Opalio entitles “The Sensational Fix trilogy”–which are front and back cover and labels of this LP.

SIDE B features a collection of solo pieces by each of the five members of this extemporaneous ensemble. The perfect compendium to the uniqueness of this historical document. Info.

Lee and Thurston each have gallery shows opening in NYC Friday January 15. Lee has “A Random Collection of Cells”, a series of works on paper at the Hogar Collection in Williamsburg.  Thurston has the Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal – Issue #10 at White Columns in Manhattan.

According to The Hogar Collection: “[We are] most pleased to announce, “A Random Collection of Cells”, the first solo exhibition at the gallery, of recent works on paper by Lee Ranaldo… Ranaldo’s visual work weaves an intriguing poetic fabric that is at once a reflective re-inspection of popular culture and media while simultaneously containing a loose and indeterminate philosophy that is able to shrug it all away and let it be as it is. His multi-disciplinary artistic practice includes music, sound, painting, printmaking, video, sculpture, installation, writing and poetry, which are at times represented in their singular forms and at others integrated into a flawless body that fluidly combines the varied mediums into one. His work relies on a straightforward kind of honesty that frequently borrows and manipulates readymade imagery.

According to White Columns: White Columns is proud to present Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal, Issue #10: an exhibition, publication, and a series of readings and performances.

Artist, musician, poet and publisher Thurston Moore began editing and producing Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal in 2001 as a forum to publish poetry by individuals who intersected the worlds of poetry, music and art. A dynamic range of writings, with various pages of visual work by Gerard Malanga, Richard Meltzer, Chan Marshall, Dennis Cooper, Kathleen Hanna, John Sinclair, Richard Hell, Jutta Koether, Gus van Sant, Rick Moody, Kim Gordon, Anne Waldman, Bill Berkson, Anselm Berrigan, Gary Panter and many others were published in eight issues in as many years.

Moore was inspired to publish Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal after years of appreciation, study and relentless archiving of post-war poetry publishing focusing on the activity of the “mimeo revolution” of the ’60s and ’70s. The stapled mimeo poetry journals produced from the St. Mark’s Poetry Project, Peace Eye Bookstore in New York City, and Asphodel Bookstore in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as a myriad of other subterranean centers of shared post-beat writing, rage, meditation and experimentation continues to inform the publication of Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal.

Issue #10 of Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal will be published and presented at White Columns as an expanded event/exhibition. A stapled issue will be created during the show.

Text of Light (Ranaldo/Licht/Krieger) will be in Los Angeles for two shows on March 10 at the Silent Movie Theatre. Check out this LA Weekly post for more info.

Lee opens for the gtr duo of Loren Connors and Alan Licht, reading poems from his forthcoming book  “Against Refusing”  as part of Issue’s ‘Littoral’ series, which pairs a reading with a musical event.  More info.

On June 22nd, 2009 Sonic Youth tore it up on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Here’s the video evidence: