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Self-destroyers
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______________ Chris Burden Through The Night Softly, 1973 ‘The action of
the poetically and ironically titled Through the Night Softly consisted of
Burden...
1 day ago
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Wallace Berman (self-made) Announcement and Sent to Michael and Joanne McClure
Monday, March 15, 2021
Who Is Lun*na Menoh? at the Ashland Indie Film Festival April 20th and April 21st
WHO IS LUN*NA MENOH? will be playing virtually on April 20-21 on Ashland Indie Film Festival's Eventive page on https://watch.eventive.org/.
Tickets will be on sale on April 7th.
Stay tuned for more information.
Book Musik: "The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran The Swinging Sixties" Discussion with author Darryl W. Bullock
Book Musik 042 – The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran the Swinging Sixties – discussion with author Darryl W. Bullock
Theme music: “Behind Our Efforts, Let There Be Found Our Efforts” by LG17
Sunday, March 14, 2021
Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World (Tosh Berman Reads from his Memoir)
TOSH is a memoir of growing up as the son of an enigmatic, much-admired, hermetic, and ruthlessly bohemian artist during the waning years of the Beat Generation and the heyday of hippie counterculture. A critical figure in the history of postwar American culture, Tosh Berman's father, Wallace Berman, was known as the "father of assemblage art," and was the creator of the legendary mail-art publication Semina. Wallace Berman and his wife, famed beauty and artist's muse Shirley Berman, raised Tosh between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and their home life was a heady atmosphere of art, music, and literature, with local and international luminaries regularly passing through.
Purchase SIGNED Copies of TOSH: Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World (TamTam Books)
One can purchase a SIGNED copy of my memoir TOSH: Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World (City Lights) here:
THE VELVET MAFIA: The Gay Men Who Ran The Swinging Sixties” by Darryl W. Bullock (Omnibus Press) 2021
THE VELVET MAFIA: The Gay Men Who Ran The Swinging Sixties” by Darryl W. Bullock (Omnibus Press) 2021
If I had my own record shop, I would name the shop after Darryl W. Bullock’s book “The Velvet Mafia.” In my shop, instead of having sections or categories on artists, I would have Larry Parnes, Brian Epstein, Joe Meek, Robert Stigwood, Simon Napier-Bell, and Andrew Loog Oldham sections. Since these gentlemen are not recording artists but managers and producers, it will focus on their pop music view. Mostly gay, when being gay was illegal in England up until 1967, these figures articulate and sold generations music that was essential and sometimes bad. Here, bad is a sign of genius. All above are strong visionaries in how they sold a product - usually good-looking males, with occasionally questionable music talents, and artists of great importance and brilliance.
Due to the laws and the straight world, LGBT professionals had to work publicly and secretively. Managers like Larry Parents and Brian Epstein came from Jewish working-class families who had retail shops. Both tried to enter the show biz world as entertainers or actors but realized that they could go into showbiz through promoter and manager. For Parnes, his ‘yes’ moment was seeing the teenage Tommy Steele in a Solo coffee house and Epstein visiting the Liverpool Cavern to see the future Fab Four. Both saw the future, and especially Parnes invented homegrown British orientated rock n’ roll. The Beatles, of course, became a planet to themselves.
The book covers many grounds, but the focus is on Parnes, Epstein, Meek, Stigwood, and songwriter Lionel Bart. Each figure has other personalities circling them, and eventually, they mixed with the others. There are other managers/visionaries such as Andrew Loog Oldham and Simon Napier-Bell. Still, they will get their own book, or there will be a sequel to this perfect volume. I love pop music because it must be part of a more extensive culture or society. The Gay world so secretive, even with their own language at times, Polari, which is traced back to the 19th-century, and possibly to the 16th. It is a form of can’t slang that only insiders can understand. Here the Managers/Promoters made marketing decisions to create a product that appeals to the Gay’s sensibility and the screaming female fan market. Parnes is not a music person, but he realized that Rock n’ Roll needed its own platform in England and not shared with clowns, jugglers, and comedians. The roots of music hall culture will not disappear but transform into British rock n’ roll packaged tours. At times even great American artists such as Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, and Buddy Holly would be part of the big show. This cross-continental programming fueled the imagination and desires of British youth. Many of the musicians from the British Invasion have seen Buddy, Eddie, and Gene.
At the beginning of his career, who would have thought Robert Stigwood would end up being the king of showbiz. Managing Cream and Bee Gees, or the talented Lionel Bart, would lose all his dough. Parnes rarely made financial mistakes, and at times Epstein was overwhelmed with problems of narcotics, a hard love life, and finances that went totally out of his control. The 1960s was in consistent motion. I think this was the force that led these gentlemen to use their desires to make money (always the concern) and forge a new liberating culture.
Darryl W. Bullock’s “The Velvet Mafia” is a well-documented look at that decade. With the skill of a historian/journalist, he captures these figures in motion and all the byproducts of that landscape. Here you get the Kray Twins and the voices of the young British artists as their lives being changed by these business and social visionaries. Joe Meek’s sad narration is told here as well. It’s a fantastic story of a man struggling with his place in society and being a genius in his field of record production. Kimley and I discuss and interview Bullock on his book on our podcast Book Musik. It will be up on March 15, 2021.
Saturday, March 13, 2021
Tomorrow March 14th The last Day to See "Who Is Lun*na Menoh?" at the Portland International Film Festival
Tomorrow is the last day to see the documentary film on Lun*na called "Who Is Lun*na Menoh?" It's a classic and iconic film on her work as well as her personality. I'm in it as well. Fun for the entire family (kids seem to like this film). Here you can get the tickets online to see the film online:
Friday, March 12, 2021
Wallace Berman Postcard Sent to Dennis Hopper
Sunday, March 7, 2021
"Who Is Lun*na Menoh?" at the Portland International Film Festival
Who Is Lun*na Menoh” follows the life and work of the extraordinary Japanese artist. From her early career in Japan to the underground music scene in Los Angeles, from fashion show runways featuring her sculptural designs to art galleries showing her fantastical work, Lun*na’s edgy, witty and beautiful creations are explored.
Director Jeff Mizushima follows Lun*na’s artistic career, showcasing her uniquely individual expressionism and interviewing her family, gallery owners, models, fans, and fellow visual artists & musicians to find out who and what Lun*na Menoh is and why her art, in all of its forms, fits in our world.
Directed by Jeff Mizushima
81 mins | United States | 2020
Documentary
Tickets are available now and you can watch the film online from today, March 5 to March 14.
Tosh Berman Discusses Wallace Berman's "Aleph" Monday, March 8, 2021
Monday, March 8, 2021 at 4 PM PST – 6:45 PM PST
CINE SALON FREEFALL SPRING 2012 ONLINE ZOOM
Tosh Berman will narrate a walk-through of his father's surreal collage art film ALEPH created 1958-1976 by the Beat artist Wallace Berman.
Son and author Tosh Berman will approach his father’s art, the "father of assemblage art" Beat Generation icon Wallace Berman, with a deep-dive into the experimental collage film ALEPH (1958-1976), a meditation on life, death, mysticism, politics and pop culture.
On TOSH (2018) published by City Lights Books: TOSH is a memoir of growing up as the son of an enigmatic, much-admired, hermetic, and ruthlessly bohemian artist during the waning years of the Beat Generation and the heyday of hippie counterculture.
FILMS: Selected film and tv clips, and full length screening of ALEPH (1958-1976) by Wallace Berman 7:43’ and a restored film by one Berman’s art world contemporaries. TRT 120 minutes.
BIO: TOSH BERMAN, writer, poet and once publisher of TamTam Books, penned the acclaimed memoir Tosh: Growing up in Wallace Berman’s World (2019).
LINKS: https://hyperallergic.com/.../tosh-growing-up-in-wallace.../
https://www.publishersweekly.com/.../78786-tosh-berman...
https://www.haaretz.com/.../.premium-this-day-a-famed...
https://www.monsterchildren.com/wallace-berman-artist/
https://bit.ly/2xadFOX
http://tamtambooks-tosh.blogspot.com/
https://www.publishersweekly.com/.../78786-tosh-berman...
https://www.haaretz.com/.../.premium-this-day-a-famed...
https://www.monsterchildren.com/wallace-berman-artist/
https://bit.ly/2xadFOX
http://tamtambooks-tosh.blogspot.com/
Facebook page: Facebook Page for Event
Saturday, March 6, 2021
Wallace Berman, "Silent Series: Magic Mushroom" 1965
Gallery Hours
By appointment only
Gallery Information
Los Angeles, CA 90038
T 323 461 3311
Friday, March 5, 2021
"WHO IS LUN*NA MENOH?" Documentary Screening at Portland International Film Festival March 5 to March 14
Today is the day for the premiere of the film "Who Is Lun*na Menoh? directed by Jeff Mizushima, and starring Lun*na. To quote:
Who Is Lun*na Menoh” follows the life and work of the extraordinary Japanese artist. From her early career in Japan to the underground music scene in Los Angeles, from fashion show runways featuring her sculptural designs to art galleries showing her fantastical work, Lun*na’s edgy, witty and beautiful creations are explored.
Director Jeff Mizushima follows Lun*na’s artistic career, showcasing her uniquely individual expressionism and interviewing her family, gallery owners, models, fans, and fellow visual artists & musicians to find out who and what Lun*na Menoh is and why her art, in all of its forms, fits in our world.
Directed by Jeff Mizushima
81 mins | United States | 2020
Documentary
Tickets are available now and you can watch the film online from today, March 5 to March 14. Here:
Thursday, March 4, 2021
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
Wallace Berman "Untitled #127 (Donovan), Verifax Collage
Wallace Berman "Untitled #127 (Donovan), Verifax Collage, 6 x 6 1/2 inches, Framed 12 x 12 1/2 Inches. Kohn Gallery is currently closed to the public. We are receiving deliveries and are available for appointment viewings. Please contact the gallery at 323 461 3311 or email Karys Judd at karys@kohngallery.com. Wearing of face coverings and signing of a waiver will be required for entry.
Gallery Hours
By appointment only
Gallery Information
1227 North Highland Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038
T 323 461 3311
Parking in rear off of North Citrus Ave
Tuesday, March 2, 2021
Serge Gainsbourg Playlist for Apple Music & Spotify
Here is the playlist Kimley and I put together for Serge Gainsbourg and connected to our Book Musik episode on the great Serge and the book by Jeremy Allen "Relax Baby Be Cool: The Artistry and Audacity of Serge Gainsbourg." We go deep here, so enjoy the music world of Gainsbourg:
Apple Music: Serge Gainsbourg Playlist for Apple Music
GAINSBOURG: The Biography by Gilles Verlant
Gainsbourg: The Biography
By Gilles Verlant. Translated by Paul Knobloch.
When Serge Gainsbourg died in 1991, France went into mourning: François Mitterand himself proclaimed him “our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire.” Gainsbourg redefined French pop, from his beginnings as cynical chansonnier and mambo-influenced jazz artist to the ironic “yé-yé” beat and lush orchestration of his 1960s work to his launching of French reggae in the 1970s to the electric funk and disco of his last albums. But mourned as much as his music was Gainsbourg the man: the self-proclaimed ugly lover of such beauties as Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, the iconic provocateur whose heavy-breathing “Je t’aime moi non plus” was banned from airwaves throughout Europe and whose reggae version of the “Marseillais” earned him death threats from the right, and the dirty-old-boy wordsmith who could slip double-entendres about oral sex into the lyrics of a teenybopper ditty and make a crude sexual proposition to Whitney Houston on live television.
Gilles Verlant’s biography of Gainsbourg is the best and most authoritative in any language. Drawing from numerous interviews and their own friendship, Verlant provides a fascinating look at the inner workings of 1950s–1990s French pop culture and the conflicted and driven songwriter, actor, director and author that emerged from it: the young boy wearing a yellow star during the German Occupation; the young art student trying to woo Tolstoy’s granddaughter; the musical collaborator of Petula Clark, Juliette Greco and Sly and Robbie; the seasoned composer of the Lolita of pop albums, Histoire de Melody Nelson; the cultural icon who transformed scandal and song into a new form of delirium.
Gainsbourg: The Biography
FROM THE BOOK
"Now it's impossible to understand what will follow – namely the mad passion that will unite Bardot and Gainsbourg for no more than a few weeks but which will have serious repercussions for the both of them – without taking into consideration the reckless Don Juanism of this woman, who at the age of 33 is at the height of her beauty. Our anonymous contributor continues: 'She dealt with her conquests like a praying mantis: Serge, like me and like all the others, was zombified by Bardot. That woman had a supreme talent for grinding men into rubble. Serge was a totally atypical lover for her. He had the authenticity of a real artist, he hated money, and he led his life with a sort of heedless existentialist ethic. He was the exact opposite of the clean-cut types she had been with. I am convinced that Serge fascinated her much more than her other lovers. He brought her into a world of intelligence and talent, which no one had ever exposed her to before. Little did it matter that he had a face like a gargoyle from Nôtre-Dame. What's more, he brought a whole new world to her, served up on a silver platter, which is just what she needed at the time. Thanks to Serge she was hip again.'"
-Excerpted from Gainsbourg: The Biography
You can purchase the book here: Gainsbourg: The Biography by Gilles Verlant
"Evguenie Sokolov" by Serge Gainsbourg, his only work of fiction (TamTam Books)
Evguenie Sokolov
By Serge Gainsbourg. Translated by John Weightman, Doreen Weightman.
Serge Gainsbourg's sole foray into fiction, Evguenie Sokolov describes an artist who uses his intestinal gases as the medium for his scandalous artwork. What once was a smelly and noisy problem in his social and sex life becomes a recipe for success in the early 1980s art world.
FROM THE BOOK
"So, as I said to myself during the dark hours of the night while trying in vain to get to sleep, the pestilential exhalations prophetic of my corporeal death were to serve the purpose of channeling and transcending that which was more pure, most enduring and most despairingly ironical in the inner depths of my creative mind, and after all the years devoted to the technique of painting and all the day spent releasing my gases in front of museum walls radiant with the genius of the great masters, these jagged, fragile and torturous lines had now rid me forever of my inhibitions."
Excerpted from Evguenie Sokolov.
You can buy a copy here:
Serge Gainsbourg's "Confidentiel"
Serge Gainsbourg died on March 2, 1991, and I discovered his music in 1995. "Melody Nelson" is without a doubt a masterpiece, but my personal favorite album by him is "Confidentiel." Backed by just an electric guitar and double bass, this album rocks in a manner that reminds me of Elvis's Sun Records sessions. It's not rockabilly, but its jazz is deeply felt, and Serge's brilliance shines throughout this album. His songwriting talents are strong in this collection of songs. My favorite song on this album is "Scenic Railway." It's Bertolt Brecht's iciness meeting Robert Bresson's attention to detail. Other classics unfold to the listener. Superb album. -Tosh Berman
Lisen to the Book Musik podcast on Serge Gainsbourg here: Book Musik: Serge Gainsbourg & Jeremy Allen
Monday, March 1, 2021
The Three Serge Gainsbourg Compilations I recommend as an Entrance to His Music
These are the three compilations that I found to be an excellent introduction to the music by Serge Gainsbourg. There are many compilations out there, but these three are very focused and well-curated. Listen to our Book Musik podcast with the author Jeremy Allen on his great book "Relax Baby Be Cool: The Artistry and Audacity of Serge Gainsbourg. Hear it here: Book Musik: Serge Gainsbourg/Jeremy Allen
Book Musik: No. 41 "Relax Baby Be Cool: The Artistry and Audacity of Serge Gainsbourg - Discussion with author Jeremy Allen
Book Musik 041 – Relax Baby Be Cool: the Artistry and Audacity of Serge Gainsbourg – discussion with author Jeremy Allen
Tosh and Kimley are joined by author Jeremy Allen to discuss his new book Relax Baby Be Cool: the Artistry and Audacity of Serge Gainsbourg. When Gainsbourg died in 1991, the French mourned the loss of an icon on par with the deaths of Elvis Presley or John Lennon. But outside of France few noticed or knew much about him beyond perhaps his infamous duet with Jane Birkin, “Je t’aime… moi non plus.” Eventually the cult of Gainsbourg began to grow outside of France and he’s become a huge influence on musicians far and wide. This book explores the mythos of Gainsbourg and doesn’t shy away from his often provocative and controversial life.
Theme music: “Behind Our Efforts, Let There Be Found Our Efforts” by LG17
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