naked ladies are no longer counter-revolutionary

GIVE/LOVE is Here Now!

Free copies of GIVE/LOVE ship today!



At a lean and mean 16 minutes, it is the perfect soundtrack for impromptu Christmas parties with your most erudite pals, or when you’re all alone. You’ll feel like mistletoe has been hung on your brain. It’s that good!

Listen to a sample of “I Can't Sleep (On Christmas Eve)” performed by the Snowman Electrical Band, from GIVE/LOVE.

I Can't Sleep (On Christmas Eve) - Snowman Electrical Band

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Nature, Man

I found this guy hanging out on our front porch. At first, I thought, “Nature can be so cruel. As bugs go, this one looks ridiculous.” The more I thought about it though, the more I felt like stick bugs are the lucky ones. I feel a little like Doogie Howser. Remember that journal he kept on his computer?

California Love

I am honored to be showing some drawings in this three-person show in Oakland, California. The show was curated by Devin Satterfield, who used to run Liminal Gallery and now runs Helloakland. E.T. Groff is an amazing artists as well as co-director of the Basement Gallery in Oakland. Good company, good times. Please check it out if you can.

Poster Children

16x20 Bees and Trees posters available now in our Etsy shop! Finally! Yes!

I’ll see you at the next Janelle Monae show.

“Tightrope” from Letterman. This is where it’s at. Wow.

New Ben Pederson Video(s)

The ostensible battle in Ben Pederson’s new video appears to be a pretext for dealing with ideas of war, peace, chemical mind expansion and the visual language of dissent. The psychedelic style of the video is also one of its subjects. Like many of Pederson’s other videos it is ironic without being cynical, and funny without being a joke. “Battle” represents an exciting current of thought among artists who take the counter-cultural movements and icons of the past seriously, but are not so interested in nostalgia. Pederson’s work has a place at the very end of a long Romantic tradition. He has a special gift for giving ubiquitous pop culture subjects unexpected contexts and disquieting facets. It all ends up going in the bong.

Pederson and I used to laugh a lot about this place called Lidz. Lidz is a store in some shopping malls that sells hats-- lids, get it? But with a “z.” Lidz! Ben dedicated the video to me, which really flatters me to no end.

DO IT! DO IT!

I was cleaning up in the studio yesterday and I found a little piece of paper on which I had written this:
“Act first, analyze later. Impulse-- not theory-- makes the great leaps forward.”
--Jerry Rubin



I wish when I was an art student, instead of wading through Lacan, Derrida and Foucault, someone had given me a copy of DO IT! and told me to cut my losses. It’s never too late…

Do It!

Bi-Mon Sci-Fi Con

I know it will be tough for you to believe, but I wasn't always the super cool, style maven that I am today. In fact, when I was in elementary and middle school I was into comic books in a big way. My tastes were pretty pedestrian: X-Men, Batman, Spiderman, but I was certainly enthusiastic.




Today, Bees and I went to the Fanaticon (!) in downtown Asheville, partly to reconnect with my geeky past, and partly to have something to do on such a nice day. Fanaticon is the first comic book convention I've been to in approximately 20 years. The scene has really grown up (irony intended).



There were Storm Troopers, Ewoks, Batmen, Spidermen, zombies, girls in corsets, and Ghostbusters to beat the band. I really enjoy seeing people who are aggressively into a particular interest or way of life getting a chance to fully be themselves and immerse themselves in their passion without any fear at all of reprisal from the "straights."



Being in the Fanaticon, terms like "nerd" and "geek" kind of lose their meanings, or at least their power. Our purchases amounted to 10 bucks worth of horror comics from the Bronze Age, or the 1970's, for those of you not down with the lingo. We had a blast. A laser blast! Excelsior!



More photos to come!

Phish on Phriday

It’s been a while since we’ve done a “Phish on Phriday” post, and truth be told, I thought about bailing on the whole idea. However, this morning I saw this and felt it was too good not to share. This is a video of Phish performing the Rolling Stones’ “Loving Cup” on Jimmy Fallon’s show last night. Actually, it’s more like a funny video of a great big Mets fan in sunglasses (?) waving his arms furiously while Phish plays “Loving Cup.” Check him out, watch him go! It made me laugh.


Rolling Stones Week: Phish

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon | MySpace Video

Hands Plus Land

Joseph Diliberti as photographed by Allen J Schaben for the LA Times

Joseph Diliberti isn't like most Rastafarian ex-Marine Vietnam veterans that you meet. He has some rather compelling ideas regarding housing and simple living. I found out about him and his amazing digs on the LA Times website. Check out the audio slideshow, and bail on your mortgage.

High Design

Bees and Trees have made our first foray into web design. We designed and built the website for the Asheville NC band Kovacs and the Polar Bear. Visit the site and listen to their album “Loathsome Teeth.” They are breaking out new material at their shows, so get to one if you can.

Imagine a scene in which two drunk kids in a purple jeep are chasing Dave Matthews around a muddy field. Now, imagine that those kids are listening to their favorite sad song at top volume. Kovacs and the Polar Bear are performing that song.
kovacsandthepolarbear.com

And here is a site that features a picture of the feet of someone in Kovacs and the Polar Bear:
lydia see

Danny Heller - Palm Springs Exhibition

Last summer, we posted a feature about the paintings of Danny Heller. The essay is published on the back cover of the exhibition catalogue of Heller’s 2010 solo exhibition at Terrence Rogers Fine Art in Palm Springs, California.



Heller’s paintings in the Palm Springs exhibition, Heller’s third solo show with the Terrence Rogers Gallery, depict Mid-Century Modern suburban architecture and furnishings of Southern California. This group of paintings is Heller’s most complex and alluring.



Many of these new paintings feature hard-edged shadows that bisect the compositions. The effect is similar to that of the formal shadows of film noir. As in many noir films of the late 1940’s, Heller’s Palm Springs paintings suffuse scenes of Southern California opulence with paranoia and secrecy.

Stills from He Walked By Night (1948)

Some paintings depict scenes at dusk or at night. The visual language is that of drama, suspense, and fear. Heller’s Palm Springs paintings have roots that reach more aspects and attitudes of Mid-Century Southern California than the subject matter immediately suggests.




See the paintings here:
Danny Heller Art

Or on the Terrence Rogers site.

Let’s Make the Water Turn Jimmy Carl Black

Bees and I just watched the fascinating and scholarly documentary “Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention in the 1960’s,” and we were both struck by the endearing character of drummer Jimmy Carl Black (“the Indian of the group”). It really broke my heart when nearly 40 years after the fact Black expresses his pride over having been a Mother and his confusion over the demise of the group.



Here’s a super cool 1968 instrumental version of “Let’s Make the Water Turn Black” from the German television show Beat Club. I’ve seen a video of them playing this, but I can’t find it anywhere. That’s a shame because while the band plays, Motorhead Sherwood makes a big, messy sandwich onstage while laconically shaking a tambourine. Pretty funny, I thought.



Just so you don’t feel cheated, here’s a nice video of the Mothers doing their inimitable thing in 1968, this time from French television. If you’re a M.O.I. fan you’ve likely seen this, but here goes for the uninitiated…Things to note: Bunk Gardner teasing “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” at the beginning, Zappa’s unique conducting of the band, Jimmy Carl Black holding it all together, and the sheer mind-blowing synergy of the band. The main musical theme here seems to be based on “Sleeping in a Jar.” But, heck, I won’t pretend to know what’s going on. If there are any music theory nerds, (or any other nerds), out there who care to chime in-- I’d love it. I like to learn.

“Keep an Eye on Summer”

I’m getting mighty tired of winter.
I’ve got the southern California blues again. Some Danny Heller paintings and this strange video certainly help scratch the itch.

Phish on Phriday

This week I thought I’d share with you some selections from 3-20-1992 in Binghamton, NY. This show was one the first Phish tapes I ever got. Of course, this was before the internet and getting my hands on Phish shows was way more of a catch as catch can type of affair.
So here’s the show opening group of songs, nice tight versions all:
Wilson, Reba, Brother, Glide



My cassette tape only included set one, but that's no reason you should be deprived. Here's Sanity and Harry Hood from set two:

Chris Ritson - Featured Artist

Chris Ritson - Decadent

Chris Ritson is a multi-media artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work presents an array of concerns that include the body, morphology and culture, in an entrancing and grotesque kaleidoscope. Ritson’s work reminds that underlying and supporting any cultural endeavor and achievement are mysterious organic processes, continual mutation, putrefaction and rebirth.



Images of the kind of bodies found in tabloids, fitness magazines, and pornography are clipped and reassembled by Ritson into new animals and abstract forms. Ritson employs intricate sculptural and collage techniques to create works that transform the utterly banal into complex forms that elude definition.



Ritson’s approach to dealing with the body is somewhat similar to that of Tim Hawkinson, though Ritson’s work is infused with more wonder, and more affinity for the mysterious and unnamable, as opposed to Hawkinson’s clever puns and ironies.



“I am nature,” Jackson Pollock famously proclaimed. Chris Ritson’s work approaches nature and humanity in a way that shifts the focus of Pollock’s quotation from the personal to the universal. Everything is nature.




Chris Ritson currently has a solo exhibition on view at the Basement Gallery in Oakland, California.


See more of Chris Ritson’s work at his website:
http://www.chrisritson.com/

Phish on Phriday

Last week we featured some tunes from 10-16-1994, and this week we’ve got more Fall Tour ’94 stuff for you.



From 11-4 in Syracuse, here’s Curtain>Mike’s>Simple>Mike’s>Tela>Weekapaug from the second set. I’m a big fan of Tela, and I think it’s rad to hear it in the middle of this group of songs. Go Page!

Phish on Phriday

Here we go with the first installment of our new and cleverly titled weekly feature in which we’ll provide some Phish tunes to get the weekend moving in the right direction.

And what better a way to kick the whole thing off than with some selections from my first Phish show: 10-16-1994, Memorial Auditorium in Chattanooga, TN. It’s a great show replete with relative rarities. My ticket stub is a real sign of the times. In the first place it really is a stub, because someone tore the ticket in half with their hands,(as opposed to scanning it with a laser), and in the second place the ticket itself cost $18.50. Crazy.



Rift and Horn start the show with style. Not rare but still fresh.

Rift, Horn - Phish - 1994-10-16

Also from set one is TMWSIY>Alvenu Malkenu>TMWSIY, which certainly surprised me. I won’t be holding my breath until I hear another one of these.

TMWSIY>Alvenu Malkenu>TMWSIY - Phish - 1994-10-16

Check out how quiet and respectful we in the audience are during the delicate opening of the second set Fluffhead.

Fluffhead - Phish - 1994-10-16

I also won’t be holding my breath until I get another encore like this: Highway to Hell and Harpua.

Highway to Hell, Harpua - Phish - 1994-10-16

Maybe next we’ll get into some more Fall ’94 jams.

Erica Sheets - Featured Artist

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

“Come out of your houses even if it is difficult for you, do away with your individual isolation, let yourselves be possessed by the ideas of the working masses and help them in their struggle against a rotten society.”
-George Grosz, 1920

Broken Wheels

Fame, det.

Erica Sheets is an Oakland, California based multimedia artist whose work represents an update of German Socialist Realist work of the 1920’s and 30’s. Sheets blends historical and contemporary references to an effect that is profound, sobering, and visually striking.

Sheets makes a contemporary, American type of Tendenzkunst, or “tendentious art.” Tendenzkunst refers to a type of art being made in Germany after the first World War by such artists as George Grosz, Otto Dix, and John Heartfield, that addressed collective, social concerns as opposed to the personal abstractions of Dada, surrealism and expressionism.

Fame

A principle of Tendenzkunst is that any artwork not blatantly allied with social change, blatantly represents the dead weight of the status quo.

Much of Sheets’ work deals with issues of labor, class, culture, politics and social struggle. Frequently, her work examines the way that these issues are expressed in and by the body. The machinations of culture and politics maim and deform the proletariat and the bourgeoisie alike. In a work entitled “Fame,” Sheets presents an image of Angelina Jolie morphed with Mickey Mouse and laden with Oedipal associations. The eyes are plucked out, replaced with reflective surfaces, and radiating red string.

Fame, det.

Below, under a magnifying glass, is a small image of crippled rat inside of a matchbox.

“Fame” is an appropriate contemporary response to Otto Dix’s 1920 painting Der Streichholzhandler I (Match Seller I), which depicts a blind quadriplegic man seated on the sidewalk, selling matches as the bourgeoisie pass by above.

Sheets makes wise material choices in her work that raise the metaphorical value and befit the subject matter of each piece. Great mental gymnastics are not required to read red string as analogous to veins or rivulets of blood.

M-2, M-3

In Sheets’ paintings “M-2” and “M-3,” which bear images derived from posters urging factory safety, the point is symbolically made by red blood staining yellow skin.

The artwork of Erica Sheets skillfully emphasizes the collective over the individual, social consciousness over narcissistic preoccupation, and practicality over oblique ambiguity. She reminds that art has the power to be at once direct and poetic.

Erica Sheets is co-director of the Basement Gallery in Oakland, California.