Jonathan Lethem, the Roy E. Disney Professor of Creative
Writing at Pomona College, is the critically acclaimed author of
"Motherless Brooklyn," "The Fortress of Solitude,"
"Chronic City," and "Dissident Gardens". Back in 2013 he collaborated with Raymond Pettibon on
a monographic survey of the artist's work, which embraces a spectrum of
American "high" and "low" culture, from the deviations of
marginal youth to art history, literature, sports, religion, politics, and
sexuality.
Raymond, who is most well-known for his iconic punk rock graphics, is as relevant as ever, although not the best speaker. In fact as of late his work has been licensed
to NYC trend setters Supreme. The conversation starts out a little awkward but
as things move along Raymond becomes more comfortable and opens up more about
his process, collaborations, comics, film making and more.
For the first Throwback Thursday of 2013 we are going with
an unreleased Aesop Rock track by the name of “Hall of Game.” The track was produced by longtime
collaborator Blockhead and hails from the Labor Days era back in 2000. This
is classic Aesop with its dense and verbose verbal onslaught accompanied by a trademark
Blockhead backdrop that reminds us what made Aesop one of the underground’s most
exciting characters at the time and really still even to this day.
Odd Future member Frank Ocean has had a big big
year, his first commercial LP, ChannelORANGE, saw much critical and commercial
success so I figured for this week’s Throwback Thursday why not throw up Franks pre Nostalgia Ultra era music when he went by
the name of Lonny Breaux. The Collection below which I split into two
separate download links consists of 64 unreleased tracks. You’re welcome, and
enjoy!
This
isn’t the first time we have featured artist Barry McGeeon
our Throwback Thursday feature. This rare film by Cheryl Dunn shows Barry at a
demolition derby in Shibuya, Tokyo in 2001. Shot in 16 mm this special cut of
the cars being painted and the derby footage has never before been available
online until now. The film also features another Onomatopoeia favorite, Ed Templeton
and will mostly appeal to fans of bay
area painter.
Before puppeteer pioneer Jim Henson brought joy to the entertainment
world with his world famous Muppets there was Jim Henson the ad man. We all got bills to pay and sometimes those
checks come from advertisers. Jim Henson’s early works of the 60’s and 70’s included commercials and short sales films for the
likes of Wilkins Coffee, IBM, AT&T, La
Choy and PakNit Fabrics to name but a few. The revenue gathered during the
time helped Jim and his future wife, Jane, grow their own vision, kick-starting
a prolific career and leading to several puppet proto-types that would one day
be some of the most recognizable characters in pop culture. Henson didn’t necessarily
express a personal preference for any of these companies but used the time to develop
and perfect his artistic vision, often throwing in some light hearted cynicism as a wink to the adult audience. For this week’s Throwback Thursday we share some of
those early ads and instructional videos that I personally first enjoyed at the
Museum of Moving Image’s recent retrospective of Henson’s work. For those that
couldn’t make the trip out to NY at the time let this be your window. Oh yeah
and Fuck Chick-fil-A.
“The Paperwork Explosion,” Jim Henson’s weirdly sinister IBM
ad from 1967
In the 1960s, IBM tapped Jim Henson and composer Raymond
Scott to create"The
Paperwork Explosion," a four-minute advertisement for the MT/ST
word-processing machine. The commercial was jarring brew of jargon and flashing
images seemingly custom-made for an office-drone dystopia.
Cookie Monster’s debut -IBM Training Video from 1967. At the time, the greenish monster's name was actually Arnold
the Munching Monster.
A Set of Wilkins Coffee Commercials Made by Jim Henson back
in the 1950's when setting explosions and hitting Muppets was acceptable.
AT&T’s crappy service won’t put a smile on your face but maybe this video from 1963 will. According to AT&T, Henson made the video for a seminar being given to business owners on what was then a groundbreaking topic — data communications.
Delbert the La Choy Dragon appeared in television commercials for La Choy chow mein from 1965 to 1967. In some commercials he was teamed with Mert, a meek, bespectacled Muppet spokesman.
So I randomly decided I
should listen to the first six Fat Boys albums yesterday (That's a lot of Fat Boys to Listen to in one sitting) which pretty much lead
me to this week’s Throwback Thursday. I loved the Fat Boys growing up, they
brought humor and fun to hip hop but more importantly they brought something
that is still rare in the genre today, a sense of innocence. The Fat Boys aka
The Disco 3, aka Big Buff Love, the Human Beatbox, Kool Rock Ski and Prince
Markie Dee were actually pioneers in hip hop. Comparing them to rappers in 2012
is pointless as the genre went in a very different direction once Public Enemy
and N.W.A. came along but along side people like Doug E. Fresh and Biz Markee humor
and beat boxing live on today with rappers like MC Frontalot, MC Paul Barman
and even Childish Gambino to name but a few. TVONE’s documentary series, Unsung,
tells the story of the Fat Boys including both their ups and downs, through the eyes of the surviving members,
managers, producers, artists inspired and influenced by the trio, family and
more.
For this week’s Throwback Thursday we go back in time to
spend a moment with Barry Mcgee and the dearly departed Margaret Kilgallen. "I like things that are handmade,"
says Margaret Kilgallen, referring to the hand-painted signs of San Francisco's
Mission District that influenced her work. "In that they did it
themselves—that's what I find beautiful." The segment follows Kilgallen as
she bikes around the Mission, paints in her studio, visits the San Francisco
train yards with artist and husband Barry McGee, and creates a new painting
installation at the UCLA/Armand Hammer Museum. While hand-painting wall sized
letters on a ladder, Kilgallen describes her process: "I do spend a lot of
time trying to perfect my line work...when you get close up, you can always see
the line waver. And I think that's where the beauty is."
Barry McGee, who has a passion for graffiti art, says,
"I like that process of a thing discarded, then picked up, and
intercepted." In this segment, McGee discloses an urban inspiration for
his art. The segment follows McGee and Kilgallen to the local train yards where
the artists point out their favorite markings and leave some of their own,
contributing to a graphic conversation that spans train cars across the nation.
McGee is also filmed atop a water tower painting one of his signature figures.
Traveling to the UCLA/Armand Hammer Museum, the segment follows McGee as he installs
a new room-sized work, a two-story mural, as well as a storefront painting
looking out on the streets of Los Angeles.
Next Wednesday Azealia Banks will be dropping her much
anticipated mixtape, Fantasea, and while I do prefer the Harlem rappers new
sound over her old, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some tracks from yesteryear
worth revisiting to remind ourselves where it all began. For this week’s
Throwback Thursday I thought why not throw up two of Azealia’s most defining
moments prior to the release of her 1991 ep. We start off with "Seventeen",
a track produced by Diplo which sampled the well known Ladytron song
of the same name, and was released in 2009 prior to her XL Recordings
deal. Following her departure from XL in 2011 , Banks left behind her original
alias, Miss Bank$, and formally became
Azealia Banks, and like many artists today used Youtube as a resource to get
her name out there. Going in a totally different direction Banks uploaded several
demo tracks - including a cover of "Slow Hands"
by Interpol which definitely caught a lot of people’s
attention at the time.
Time to strap into your time machine for Throwback Thursday
because this week we are going back to NYC circa 1982, a time when NYC subway
cars had graffiti on them and hip hop was just starting out. Staring Futura and
Fab 5 Freddy this 10 minute video seems to act as some sort of intro to street
culture for the uninitiated masses from a very different time. Futura’s work
was pretty much light years ahead of his peers, you could see it today and it
would look as fresh as it did 30 years ago, can’t say the same for all the artists
featured in this short. Shot and edited
by Dean Winkler and Stephan Gosweski with music by The Clash featuring Lenny and
Freddy.
