Saturday, October 31, 2009

"Even Dracula will be there."

halloween tricks or treats

Happy Halloween! Bees and I plan to spend Halloween about like we always do. We'll give out candy, watch a scary movie and perform blood rites. In the way of tricks-and-treats, we have this to offer you: "It's Halloween" by the Shaggs. It's our favorite Halloween song. The Shaggs are a group that Frank Zappa allegedly liked "better than the Beatles." And if that's not a legitimate claim to credibility, nothing is.






It's Halloween - The Shaggs


The Shaggs

The Shaggs

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Halloween Means Big Business for Trees

In case you thought it was only the Beach Boys and the Grateful Dead that keeps the B&T Ranch rocking, I’ve been pummeling my brain each morning with the monstrous riffage of Big Business. See, each October I get real excited about Halloween, and Big Business. The two go hand in hand for me. Maybe it’s the shortened autumn days, with everything dying outside that fit so perfectly with all the lyrics about barren earth and grave digging. Whatever it is, my mind was totally blown when I found this video that marries the Big Business tune “Focus Pocus” and the 1920 film “Der Golem” in a wry, Halloween PSA flavored ceremony. Take heed.


Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Daniel Hipolito - Featured Artist

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Daniel Hipolito

Daniel Hipolito
Daniel Hipolito is an Austin, Texas based artist who makes achromatic work that draws on a variety of cultural reference points, and spans the scale of intimate drawings to protracted murals. His work brings hand made technique to the aesthetic of photography and mechanical reproduction methods. Hipolito’s work is photo-based realism that can be abstract and obscure, creating and an area between representation and abstraction, transparency and conspiracy.





Many of Hipolito’s compositions display multiple images with individual narratives, separated by a hard edge, on one picture plain. The sharp, total contrast of Hipolito’s work has an aggressive visual edge akin to the graphic design associated with the mediated occultism of certain types of punk, hardcore and heavy metal music.



Hipolito’s work implies enigmatic narratives, as it resembles frames of a graphic novel, or a page of photojournalism, forms of media that often depict crime and terror in achromatic panels. Similar to the effect of crime scene photography, the mundane is transformed into mystery and menace.





The southern California locations depicted link Hipolito’s work to the grim existentialism of Los Angeles noir. His work also finds existential forbearance in the abstract expressionist paintings, and direct, minimal approach to materials, of Franz Kline. Like L.A. based John Baldessari, Hipolito combines images in a way that elicits new associations and confounds conclusion.


See more of Daniel Hipolito’s here: Daniel Hipolito