Art Collection: Can You Guess The Artist?

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I just acquired twelve drawings by this artist. They're all from 1947-8, just a few years before he became very famous and successful. More, and the answer, tomorrow!

Ugly Tour Bus Drawing: French Mutation

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This is another case where I saw a bus I wanted to photograph but was unable to get close enough to it. Luckily, the detail I wanted was easy to recreate.

Still unable to decide if I should add some fake shadows or reflections to it.

Vendor Cart Hot Dog Photoblogging

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Ugly Tour Bus Photoblogging: What Are You Looking At (#2)

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Ugly Tour Bus Photoblogging: What Are You Looking At (#1)

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Audioblogging: Pylon Live, Athens, August 2004

Pylon were an instant favorite of mine from the moment I heard their first 7". They were always somewhat overshadowed by their Athens compatriots the B-52s and REM, probably because they weren't as adorable and media-friendly as the former, or as slick as the latter. On the other hand, they WERE as catchy and infectious as their more fortunate native comrades.

Otherwise, Pylon had much more in common with British post-punk bands like Gang of Four and PIL, with their heavy-bass-driven grooves and scratchy guitar. I believe their greatest strength was almost certainly their fatal weakness: their lead singer. Vanessa Briscoe eschewed new wave girl cutesiness with a growling rasp and abstract lyrics. She was more like Johnny Rotten than Debbie Harry. In fact, the entire band was practically anti-cute.

During their first period, from 1979 - 1983, Pylon released a handful of superb singles and two great albums, Gyrate and Chomp, which I have never gone more than a couple of months without hearing. They gave it another brief go in the late 80s/early 90s, but the momentum had vanished, and their final album, Chain, was not without its charms, but fairly unmemorable. 

Fast forward to 2003: I was talking about music with a coworker when the subject of early 80s music came up. I was surprised when he asked, "Have you heard of Pylon?" and then I almost fell over when he said that they were old friends of his. About a year later, he revealed to me that Pylon had just done their first gig in years, and that Randall Bewley, their guitarist, had sent him a CD of the performance, which he passed along to my astonished hands.

Shortly thereafter, I was thrilled to meet Randy in person when he came to my work to visit our mutual friend. He revealed that Pylon wasn't going to attempt to get back together as a full-time thing, but that they'd have future shows and perhaps make new recordings. All of them had gone on to other careers, and they were happy with their "erstwhile beloved" status while being realistic about their place in the music industry food chain.

And then... Randy died. Horribly. And that, really, finally, was the end of Pylon. Sometimes the world just isn't fair.

So here, thanks to Randy, is their "public practice" gig from Summer 2004, the first time they had performed together in many years. I don't believe this has ever been released to the web. They sound really good considering the time which had passed, and it's telling that they didn't do a single song from their nondescript third album. The song list:

1. Recent Title
2. Cool
3. Working is No Problem
4. Gravity
5. Weather Radio
6. The Human Body
7. Read a Book
8. Driving School
9. Beep
10. Crazy
11. Dub
12. Volume
13. Feast on My Heart
14. Danger
15. Stop It!
16. M Train

The mp3 files are zipped up in a 85mb archive and downloadable here, and you can read more about the gig here.

Enjoy!

PS: It turns out the Pylon typeface is Eurostile Extended Bold.

Ugly Tour Bus Photoblogging: White Stripe

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Ugly Tour Bus Photoblogging: I'm So Green

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Real Food: Electric Chicken

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Ugly Tour Bus Photoblogging: Shadow

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Real Food: Lamb To The Slaughter

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Ugly Tour Bus Photoblogging: Foul Ball

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Photoblogging: Hell Beast, Antique Mall, Bisbee

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Photoblogging: Coming Soon From Marvel™

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I wonder if his sidekick is Gutter Buddy?

Photoblogging: Figure in a Pink Landscape

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Aborted Travelogue: Trip to Arizona Part 2

OMG you guys, I don't know what it was, but I just could NOT finish the post below. I'd go back to it and be, like, "Ugh, that was weeks ago." And then I'd want to post something else, but I'd think, "No, I have to finish that post about my trip to Tucson."

So, finally, I'm just going to admit that I'll never finish this post, so here's as far as I got. Postus Interruptus, I guess. But if I don't just burn this one off now, this blog will be dead forever, so sorry about that:

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One thing which was funny was that I brought lovely, beautiful and tasteful gifts for my three sisters and my mother, and for my brother... the disturbing vintage plush toy seen above.

The weather was stunning the whole time I was there. Here is the view from my parents' backyard on a perfect Spring day:

Next up, a trip to Bisbee! First, though, a trip to famous BK Tacos for one of their justifiably celebrated "Sonora Style" hot dogs. This guy made sure you felt welcome:

Bisbee is a fair distance from Tucson, in the southeastern corner of Arizona. You pass through miles of scrubby valleys filled with joshua trees, ironwood, mesquite, creosote, etc.

The surrounding mountains are gorgeous (sorry, lousy shots from the car window):

 

Bisbee, Arizona is an old mining town which never completely died, but instead transitioned into an undeniably quaint yet almost unbearably cutesy tourist. Mid Atlantic residents will know what I mean when I say, "It's like Harper's Ferry meets Breaking Bad."

Anyway, that's it. I don't really have trenchant observations about Bisbee after all.

Onward!

Travelogue: Tucson Via Dallas With Bonus Bisbee, Part 1

I traveled back home to Tucson last week for a very special occasion: my father's 90th birthday party! A good time was had by all, and it was a gorgeous, perfect springtime in southern Arizona.

But first, I had a five-hour layover in the Dallas airport:

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I had a nice travel outfit, which always makes flying seem fancier to me. Remember when flying really seemed fancy? Now you have to make it fancy yourself:

(Gray jersey sport coat by Gant, white cotton shirt by Theory, vintage Hermès silk tie.)

I had hours and hours to kill in the Dallas airport, so I decided to "dine" at TGI Friday's, where I enjoyed a comically large novelty margarita and something which seemed to be chicken-like and suspended in a bubbling ooze of salty, viscous petroleum products. This would prove to be the saddest yet most conceptually successful eating experience of the trip.

(It's like a Slurpee, but kind of with booze, and certainly created in vats.)

Also available in the Dallas airport: makeup vending machines. This brought to mind endless "Walk on the Wild Side" possibilities for my journey back home:

Finally I got to Tucson and was picked up at the airport by good ol' Dad on the eve of his 90th birthday! Way to go, Dad! Hope it's the genes!

In the evening, we headed to a great Mexican restaurant where my mother and father and I were joined by my brother (whose contributions to this blog you may remember), my three sisters, my niece and two nephews. I was thrilled with my niece, who is a perfect tween, brimming with eye rolls and never less than a minute away from Snapchatting. So good. And I was astonished to discover that my nephews Thomas and James, 17 and 14, once irritating enough that I expected to tolerate them at best, have matured into healthily obsessive horror/exploitation movie fans! So we had LOTS to talk about ("I'll send you DVDs of Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble, but DON'T watch them with your parents, OK?")

My photographic project this time around was "Arizona Kitsch", but that quickly fell by the wayside as I got subsumed into a family tornado. I did manage to get this shot at the restaurant, though, which basically says everything you need to know about Southwest design:



Next: trip to Bisbee!

Ugly Tour Bus Photoblogging 2015!

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It's a new season!

Photoblogging: Landscaping

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Dedicated To Tucker And Buckley Carlson