2006-10 Vital Source Mag – October 2006
Testing Page for Evan
By Subhead here This is one paragraph. This is another. And another. This is bold.
Oct 24th, 2006 by Vital Archives
Bob Dylan
By Blaine Schultz With Modern Times, Bob Dylan finds himself inhabiting the itinerant bluesmen’s spirits he merely impersonated when he cut his first album in 1962. As with the masterful Love and Theft, Dylan immerses himself in American music forms, touching on blues, old-timey country and Tin Pan Alley pop, and lets his band rip into these templates, reinventing them in his own image. If these songs sound familiar it is simply because Dylan is not shy about borrowing generously – a Muddy Waters line here, a slide guitar lick there – from source materials that were magpied plenty of times before he got to them. But like Miles Davis and Bill Monroe, Dylan reconfigures the very DNA of the music. This is the second album in a row Dylan has chosen to record with his current touring group and, musically, Modern Times excels when the players work in their signature driving, roadhouse blues that allows for real-time interaction and bits of improvisation. Not unlike his legendary work with The Band, this lineup is a stellar example of how songs are treated in the hands of sympathetic players. Unfortunately, in Dylan’s tour of the American songbook he seems to have developed a jones for crooners. While his cragged voice woks great for the Old Testament cane-stompers, there’s too much Bing Crosby included here; that’s my lone caveat. Consumer note: some pressings include a DVD of four fantastic performances, and orders from his website include a CD of Dylan’s Theme Time satellite radio show with his hilarious commentary on baseball-themed tunes.
Oct 1st, 2006 by Vital Archives
A lifetime in color
By Evan Solochek “I don’t even know why you’re wasting your time interviewing me,” Saul Leiter says in a soft, weathered voice. “Really?” I ask sheepishly, “You know you’re kind of a big deal, right?” He just laughs. Leiter’s warm laugh, not to mention unwavering humility, would be a frequent guest during our half-hour conversation. At 82-years old, laughter comes easy to a man who simply doesn’t take things too seriously. Leiter recalls one day a few years back, when a curator from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art met with him at his studio. Upon examining samples of his work she exclaimed, “You must be very dedicated.” “I told her I wasn’t,” Leiter says through labored laughter. “I think that upset her because people expect you to be serious about certain things. I think that if you’re familiar with art, the history of art and all the very great things that have been done, you don’t take yourself that seriously. There are photographers and artists who are very unfamiliar with the history and as soon as they do something they think they’ve done a Rembrandt. I haven’t been burdened by that kind of illusion.” Serendipitous success To hear Leiter discuss his career in photography it seems as though it happened almost by accident, or at least in spite of the man himself. It has been a long and winding journey these past 50 years, and along the way Leiter has sat in the passenger seat and watched as the path unfolded before him. “No one has ever accused me of being a very clever career person,” says Leiter. “In order to have a career you have to want to have a career and have to be obsessed with having a career. I didn’t find that obsession attractive.” From this point of view, Leiter’s success can be more easily attributed to raw talent and a unique perspective than to relentless ambition. Arriving in New York City from The Cleveland Theological College in 1946, the then 23-year-old son of a rabbi was an aspiring painter who quickly befriended Richard Pousette-Dart, an abstract expressionist painter who Leiter calls “one of the great American artists.” It was Pousette-Dart’s experimentation with photography that turned Leiter on to the camera. Originally utilizing black and white, Leiter soon moved to color, for which at one time he received much apathy but today he is most widely regarded. And much like everything else in his life, Leiter attributes this career-defining shift to mere happenstance. “I bought a roll of film one day and it was a roll of color,” he says. “I had been doing black and white and I bought a roll of color and I used it and I liked it so I went on using it. That’s how it all began. There were people who looked down on color; it was considered inferior by some people to black and white. I don’t understand why. The history of art is very often the history of […]
Oct 1st, 2006 by Vital Archives
Jet
By Jon M. Gilbertson There was no denying that Jet’s 2003 debut, Get Born, was energetic. That distinguished both the Aussie band and their songs from Oasis, with whom they have otherwise shared numerous characteristics: brotherly consanguinity (the Cesters vs. the Gallaghers), a producer (Dave Sardy) and a fetish for wearing yesterday’s fashions as though they were today’s. Not a lot has changed on Jet’s follow-up, Shine On, but it is a stronger album because of how every little evolution accumulates over the course of its 15 tracks. The most noticeable improvement lies in the band’s ability to vary tempos. Get Born’s best songs were its faster ones, period, and never mind that the clumsy “Sexy Sadie” rewrite “Look What You’ve Done” was a hit. Now, whether tearing through the mid-tempo AC/DC-derived “Stand Up,” gently developing a Pink Floyd tangent via the title track, or throwing noise all over the garage in “Rip It Up,” Jet sounds just that significant bit less reverent of their sources. As frontman and lead singer Nic Cester spearheads the turn toward determined looseness, both his shredded-speaker scream and his Abbey Road-era croon have gained something akin to personality. Mostly, though, Jet and Sardy don’t tamper with what worked before: Chris Cester’s Ringo-solid drums, Mark Wilson’s power-trio bass (which sounds heavy in the quartet setting) and Nic Cester and Cam Muncey’s too-perfect guitar interplay. Yes, what worked before for Jet was actually what worked 35 years before Get Born got born. It still works, and probably shall as long as cheeky bastards like this have the energy and arrogance of youth.
Oct 1st, 2006 by Vital Archives
Shoot from the hip
By Jon Anne Willow You may have heard of Cedar Block, Milwaukee’s premiere presenter of offbeat creative events with an emphasis on group participation. You may have heard of Saul Leiter, the New York street photographer who blazed the trail for the use of color in art photography in the mid 20th century. And you may have heard of lomography… or not. But even if none of these are familiar to your ear, you will surely have heard of the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) and of Milwaukee Street in Milwaukee. And whether you’ve heard of all these things or only the last two, you will soon see them brought together in what is perhaps one of the most interesting collaborations of local and national photography this year. In Living Color: The Photographs of Saul Leiter opened at the Art Museum on September 28. Unlike his ersatz contemporaries in Abstract Expressionism, Mark Rothko and Richard Pousette-Dart, Leiter’s work wasn’t embraced by the formal art community until recently. But like Fellini or Bergman among filmmakers, his influence has been felt among photographers for decades. And now Milwaukee will be first to acknowledge his contribution to the form with the first-ever major exhibit for the 82-year-old photographer. As early as the late 40s, Leiter worked primarily in color, shooting scenes of New York City that stunningly captured urban life in saturated frames and off-kilter focus. At that time, color photography was not only expensive to process, but viewed by many as a baser form of the medium. Leiter’s photos further insulted the “art world” by presenting technical “imperfections” rather as augmentation, an approach with which he was rewarded by resounding silence from curators around the world. To his vast credit, Leiter didn’t care: he continued to ply his trade his own way, presenting his work as slide shows with his photographs blown up to the scale of full-size paintings. The MAM exhibit will include a room devoted to a digital slide show in that vein, along with around 70 color prints, a selection of black and white photos and four of his watercolor/govache paintings. Enter Cedar Block, the brainchild of Brent Gohde, ostensibly a member of Milwaukee’s emerging DIY Art Movement. (Though the city has yet to be recognized nationally as a haven for such, we are confident it will, so we’ll just say it now). Gohde, like his peers, is firmly committed to the principle that there is a place for every artist who wants to work, even if their talents and opportunities don’t fall into traditionally accepted tracks. To that end, Cedar Block stages unusual events, from Weird Science Fairs to essay contests, and now an exhibit of lomography-inspired photographs by local artists in conjunction with the Leiter exhibit. “There’s never been a voice that shouldn’t be heard,” says Gohde. “These events provide a venue for the non-traditional artist to show their work, have it displayed in a world-class museum. My fondest hope is reaching further quarters of the Milwaukee community […]
Oct 1st, 2006 by Jon Anne Willow
Pegi Taylor
By Blaine Schultz + photos by Philip Krejcarek Pegi Taylor is a performance artist and writer. And she herself has been a piece of art for the past 25 years as hundreds of photographers, painters and sculptors have used her as both inspiration and subject. But according to her, “Artists and the Model: A Quarter Century with Pegi Taylor,” her upcoming Gallery Night show at the Elaine Erickson Gallery, “is really not about me. It is about the artists who have drawn me. The chapbook I’m writing for the show has short essays about how all of them have changed me.” 1.If you were headed for a desert island and could only take one work of art, what would you choose and why? “The Flaggellants” by Carl von Marr. Marr was born in Milwaukee and the painting hangs in the West Bend Art Museum. It would remind me of home. The only reason I’d be going to a desert island is if the world had descended into ruin, and the painting portrays followers of a medieval religious sect flogging themselves as an act of penance for the plagues. I’d want to be right there with them. There are hundreds of figures in the painting, so I would have lots of “company.” It is 13’ by 25’ so I could use it to shelter me, if necessary. 2) What goes through your mind during your modeling sessions? I’m thinking most about the next pose I will take. There is so much to consider. Should I stand, kneel, squat, recline or sit? Where should I face my body? Should my legs be apart, crossed, together? Maybe one leg should be higher than the other. Is the pose short enough that I can twist my back and not hurt at the end of it? What should I do with my arms? What about my hands and fingers? Maybe I want my palms up, or to make a fist or point. Where should I turn my head? Do I want it tilted up or down or to one side? What attitude do I want to express with the pose? 3) Your job is to inspire artists. How do artists inspire you? The attentive quiet in the studio calms me and slows me down and ideas flood into me. Making art, though clothed, they are so much more vulnerable than me. Their willingness to expose themselves demands that I be as fearless as possible. 4) What is the craziest comment you have heard about donating your skeleton to MIAD? I don’t get crazy comments. It makes people think about how our bodies have value. If anything, it leads to discussions about the nefarious body parts trade going on throughout the world. After the show, I want to return to my goal of establishing a national maceration site where people can legally donate their skeletons. 5) As an artist you value and appreciate your senses. If your child were to have only one sense, which would […]
Oct 1st, 2006 by Vital Archives
What kind are you?
By Jon Anne Willow Dear Readers, My boyfriend is my favorite kind of conservative. A drive past a “Give Peace a Chance” yard sign is enough to get him started. “I don’t want to hear from anyone about being unhappy with the way things are going unless they have a plan to change it,” is one common complaint. If I mention that he himself is unhappy with “the way things are going” he is quick to point out that he’s not complaining. (God forbid we ever end up at a red light behind a “Republicans for Voldemort” bumper sticker: The only thing that bothers him more than liberals without a plan is fantasy andscience fiction.) When afforded these impromptu opportunities to engage in political debate, the conversation plays out predictably. He lays out his argument with the usual tent stakes of the superior organizational power of the Republicans and his support of decisive action and a clear agenda over ideological drift and Tower-of-Babel pluralism. His resolve typically begins to falter, though, when questioned directly on whether the decisive actions to which he refers represent sound policy, and whether the clear social and moral agenda of his party truly adhere to the founding principles of Republicanism. Like many conservative individuals, he is a person of common sense, secretly disappointed in just how far his party has strayed from its core values. I’m pretty sure I’m also my boyfriend’s favorite kind of liberal. I pound the tent stakes of our nation’s fall from grace: of a once-compassionate government which no longer guards the interests of its most vulnerable, which thumbs its nose at the rest of the world’s economic and social interests, which aggressively seeks to erode such basic personal freedoms as privacy and reproductive choice. My resolve typically begins to falter, though, when he points out that despite the fact that many Americans on both sides of the political fence share my views, my party has done nothing to effect change except make the aforementioned charges. Yes, Democrats are working hard to win back Congressional seats in these midterm elections on a vague platform of curing these ills, but the party was beset on all sides for over a decade before it started to retaliate with any force. “The war has been such an effective distraction,” I attempt to argue. “People don’t want to buck the leadership when faced with such a crisis.” I even sometimes add lamely, “Besides, these things take time.” (God forbid we end up at a red light behind a “Democrats Have Moral Values, Too” bumper sticker. The only thing that bothers me more than liberals without a plan is whining statements of the obvious.) Not so secretly, I am also disappointed in how far my party has strayed from its core values. But what is the solution? The events of the last five years have shown in stark relief just how little difference there is between elected officials. Even if given a free pass on the […]
Oct 1st, 2006 by Jon Anne Willow
October Records Releases
By Erin Wolf OCTOBER 3 Beck The Information Interscope Jim Brickman Escape SLG/Savoy Lindsey Buckingham Under the Skin Reprise Cities Variations Yep Roc The Datsuns Smoke & Mirrors U.K. – V2 The Decemberists The Crane Wife Capitol Evanescence The Open Door Wind-up The Dears Gang of Losers V2 Jet Shine On Atlantic The Killers Sam’s Town Island The Kooks Inside In/Inside Out Astralwerks Amos Lee Supply and Demand Blue Note Sean Lennon Friendly Fire Capitol Pernice Brothers Live a Little Ashmont Rodrigo y Gabriela Self-titled ATO/RCA George Strait It Just Comes Natural MCA Nashville …and you will know us by the Trail of Dead So Divided Interscope Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 Olé! Tarantula! Yep Roc The Hold Steady Boys and Girls in America Vagrant OCTOBER 10 The Be Good Tanyas Hello Love Nettwerk The Blood Brothers Young Machetes V2 Chin Up Chin Up This Harness Can’t Ride Anything Suicide Squeeze Califone Roots & Crowns Thrill Jockey Lloyd Cole Antidepressant One Little Indian Albert Hammond Jr. (Strokes guitarist) Yours to Keep U.K. – Rough Trade The Memory Band Apron Strings: Songs of False Love and True Bloodshot Oxford Collapse Remember the Night Parties Sub Pop Robert Pollard Normal Happiness Merge OCTOBER 17 Patti LaBelle The Gospel According to Patti LaBelle Universal The Slits Revenge of the Killer Slits SAF Clinic Visitations U.K. – Domino Diddy Press Play Bad Boy/Warner Jeremy Enigk World Waits Sony BMG Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Love Their Country Fat Wreck Chords Badly Drawn Boy Born in the U.K. XL/Astralwerks OCTOBER 24 The Blow Paper Television K Converge No Heroes Epitaph The Heart Attacks Hellbound & Heartless Hellcat/Epitaph John Legend Once Again Columbia The Walkmen Pussy Cats Starring the Walkmen Record Collection My Chemical Romance The Black Parade Reprise Brian Setzer 13 Surfdog Sparta Threes Hollywood OCTOBER 31 The Clipse Hell Hath No Fury J Copeland Eat, Sleep, Repeat The Militia Group Dead Poetic Vices Tooth & Nail Jim Jones Bright Lights Big City Koch Barry Manilow The Greatest Songs of the Sixties Arista Aimee Mann One More Drifter in the Snow Super Ego Meat Loaf Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose Virgin Willie Nelson & The Cardinals Songbird Lost Highway Paul Wall Get Money, Stay True Atlantic The Who Endless Wire Universal Republic
Oct 1st, 2006 by Vital Archives
Now you see it…
By Amy Elliott + photos by Kate Engeriser You’re seeing something you know, but you don’t know what you’re seeing – that’s how “Super Subconscious” hits the eyes. Painted in grayscale and composed of hundreds of layered advertising icons, it shifts with your gaze; some things come into relief, others fall concealed. The panels of the mural snap as they sway and sink in the wind. You can hear it for blocks on Vliet Street when the traffic is light. Two kids who’ve come to skate at the Vliet Street Commons hoist their skateboards to shield the sun from their eyes.They laugh at the cackling mug of Spongebob Squarepants, point at the logos they recognize and the brands they like. “Led Zeppelin,” says one to the other. “This is awesome.” Its sharp lines catch the glances of drivers-by; it looks like an emphatic banner for an epic party in the Commons or a stark charge of political will. But the piece is the attempt of artists Harvey Opgenorth and Nate Page – in their own words – to “graft a mural-sized ‘representation’ of the subconscious mind” and “to disrupt commercially implied cultural value systems.” Later this month, Opgenorth will install “Subliminal” in the window of an empty storefront across the street at 4920 Vliet, a neon piece that will blink its own questions about the nature of advertising. Both installations are part of a collaboration with the West End Vliet Street Business Association (WEVSBA) and IN:SITE (insitemilwaukee.org), an organization for the encouragement, management and promotion of temporary public art in Milwaukee. “Vliet street has a lot of missing teeth,” says Pat Mueller, President of WEVSBA. “From 43rd to 60th we have Washington Park, the old 3rd district police station, Wick Field – things that sort of eat into our retail and commercial space.” But that same stretch – 43rd to 60th – has no national chain stores, a fact that Mueller, and the artists working for IN:SITE, wanted to celebrate and explore. “The whole climate of the city has changed since these business districts were built,” says Mueller. “The little stores that met people’s everyday needs don’t exist anymore. You have to find a niche, and to that end we have really moved toward art.” The backbone of hope IN:SITE embraces temporary art for reasons that are practical as well as conceptual. Less upkeep and financial overhead means more artists have the chance to share their voices and more neighborhoods can afford to participate. Non-permanent art can change with neighborhoods that are as dynamic and diverse as the people that live in them, and the projects always stay fresh, surprising and adventurous. In the North Avenue Gateway District on the west side, on the corner of a handsome but empty building, Chris Silva and Michael Genovese hang weathered signs, hand-lettered with equally weathered aphorisms: “Every man is guilty of the good he did not do;” “It is a sign of strength, not […]
Oct 1st, 2006 by Amy Elliott
Of labor unions and fetish gear
By Matt Wild A man wearing an American flag headband tears past me on his bicycle, narrowly avoiding a collision forceful enough to rearrange our collective bone structures. He turns back to look at me, a strange grin on his face, a psychotic glint in his eyes. “Wake up, kid. Wake up!” It’s 11 a.m. and I’m stumbling east along Wisconsin Avenue, hung over and slowly following the annual Labor Fest parade to the Summerfest grounds. I’m here to find out why so many perfectly sane people have decided to get out of bed on this cold, wet morning and gleefully march through the streets of downtown Milwaukee. Hordes of union-types carry banners denoting their affiliations (Sheet Metal Workers, Bricklayers Union). Small children hold signs saying “Don’t Roll Back Workers’ Rights!” A WTMJ news chopper hovers overhead like a threat. I try to snap a few pictures, but a hay-bailer driven by a bunch of iron workers nearly plows me over, my second near-miss of the day. Collecting my wits, I decide to heed the biker’s advice: Wake up. Ask questions. “Immigration reform” are the words I hear most often when pressing people on their reasons for marching, as well as a laundry list of candidates to be supported: Doyle, Kohl, Falk, et al. Amidst the admittedly left-leaning crowd I manage to spot a small group of Mark Green supporters, huddled tight against the inclement weather. Quietly sidling up I politely try to strike up a conversation. Would they like to answer a few questions? Nothing. What are their reasons for being here today? No answer. What are Mark Green’s views on unions? On immigration? A few evil glares, some hushed mumblings (I distinctly hear “Don’t even look at him.” ), but still nothing. Have you guys seen any of Green’s TV commercials, and if so, how long can you make it before you start laughing? Sensing a potentially ugly scene, I decide to ditch the weasely bastards and head for the festival grounds. Inside, the mood is somewhat muted, the light drizzle from the morning having turned into a fairly steady downpour. While signs screaming “Safety on the Job!” and “Protect Immigrant Workers Now!” abound, the event itself is disturbingly similar to Summerfest: eight dollar cups of beer and cover bands playing “Love Shack.” Barbara Lawton is giving a speech on the Miller Oasis stage, her words echoing off a sea of wet, empty bleachers. A grizzled-looking man suddenly approaches, a despairing look on his face. “You see this crowd? This represents every progressive in the state. It’s no wonder we always lose.” Surely it’s just the weather, I remark. If it wasn’t such a miserable day, maybe then…but no, he’s already gone. An unidentified woman takes Lawton’s place on stage and begins making an impassioned speech in Spanish. I ask another woman nearby to translate for me, but she doesn’t speak any… “ENGLISH! DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND. ENGLISH!?! Take another picture of me and I’ll…” There’s a drunken lunatic […]
Oct 1st, 2006 by Matt Wild
