The Orchid Club

The Record, September 1982, Where's Stevie?

2010-01-14T14:44:00.000-05:00

The Record, September 1982

By David Gans

"Where's Stevie"

FANTASY ISLAND, Ca,-On the kitchen table in Mick Fleetwood’s Malibu mansion sits a model of the stage design for Fleetwood Mac’s upcoming American tour. In between the tiny amplifiers, drums and pianos stand cardboard cutouts representing the five members of then band. There’s a Lindsey Buckingham doll, a John McVie doll, etceteras. Why does the Stevie Nicks doll have a cigarette burn where her heart is supposed to be? And why is a hand crumpling the flat, white expressionless thing into a little ball and tossing it into a trash can?

MALIBU, Ca.-This scenario is entirely fictitious. It is a product of a demented writer’s imagination, fueled by observations of Stevie Nick’s apparent hostility towards the rest of Fleetwood Mac, encouraged by sadistic editor, and starved by the brain-damaged illegals who run the hotel where I ordered a room-service burger that never came and attempted to write about what really happened at Mick Fleetwood’s house that afternoon.

Certainly Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie, who were all present for the interview, did nothing to suggest the above fantasy; but all three did speak somewhat wearily of the constant speculation on the part of the press and public about the future of the band. They also acknowledged that here is more grist for the rumor mill than ever before: The roaring success of Nick’s solo album, Bella Donna, and her absence from recording sessions, interviews (at lest those concerning Fleetwood Mac) and tour preparations seem ample evidence to support the notion that the singer has reached the point of self-sufficiency.

Whether the topic was songwritting, recording or personalities, the conversation kept drifting back to the subject of Stevie nicks, while the equally-absent John McVie was discussed only briefly and in the most benign of terms. The bassist, a road animal and an acknowledged studiophone, was sailing in the Virgin Islands at the time of the interview and was due to join the band a few days later to rehearse. Nicks, on the other hand, was scheduled to show up only for the last ten days of work prior to the start of the tour.

"She phones her part in," says McVie without a trace of irony. "She asks what songs we plan on doing and what songs we want her to do. The rest of it will be decided between Mick, Lindsey and me."

"I’m not that excited about touring myself," admits Buckingham, who frequently expresses his preference for working in the recording studio. "But it’s something we should do, so I’m definitely going to do it. If you do an album, you might as well complete the cycle-otherwise, why do the album? Fleetwood notes that "for the better part of six years, we all had a huge commitment to Fleetwood Mac. All we did was tour. I think that if after this much time there isn’t some sort of base that can withstand a certain amount of pounding from the people who helped create it, then it’s pretty useless.

"People have been waiting for us to break up for years, and the subject’s coming up again. The most likely one to disappear is Stevie, but there’s absolutely no way of telling whether she wants to go off and not be a part of the band, and at other times it’s the opposite."

But there’s more to it than that. In arranging this interview, it was apparent at nearly every turn that Stevie Nicks has set herself apart from the rest of Fleetwood Mac in a way which is not exactly in the spirit of commitment. She has a record company virtually all to herself-Modern Records has released no product other than Bella Donna-and she alone among the Mac is represented by the industry’s most grudgingly-respecting hardballer, Irving Azoff, it should be noted, owns no piece of Fleetwood Mac’s action; and though his interest in this matter is solely Stevie Nicks, there’s no evidence to indicate that he’s responsible for pushing her away from the band.

No one in the Fleetwood Mac organization seems to know for sure what Nick’s intentions are with respect to the band , and when asked id she would respond to specific issues raised in the interview with the others, a representative of Azoff’s company said, "She just wants to work on her record."

It’s not hard to understand why Nicks might be reluctant to return to the enforced democracy of a five piece band after having established herself as a triple-platinum act with her own material and musicians-both in the studio and on the road-whose defined role is to play her music her way. But would Fleetwood Mac survive her departure?

"Why not?" asks Fleetwood from the vantage point of one who’s seen some key personnel losses in his time: Fleetwood Mac numbers among its alumni Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch, all of whom were seen (by outsiders as least) as vital components of the Mac’s music. "I don’t think there’ll be a reason to madly look for someone else. If someone disappears, then that’s what happens. Who knows? The whole thing might blow up."

"I might leave," McVie chimes in. "How about that?"

Fleetwood then offers the ultimate scenario: "When it’s all totally finished I’ll probably still be standing there, totally deluded and thinking that everyone was still around me, waiting to go on stage."

Touché

Fleetwood seems less concerned with the prospect of another personnel change that with maintaining an emphasis on musical growth. :I respect the fact that we’re still being creative and enjoying ourselves. The reason why we’re still here is that there is an underlying commitment to respecting the band, no matter how many times you might get fed up with it."

"There is definitely a chemistry that transcends everything else that might happen before or after we’re on stage," McVie elaborates. "We play well together and sing well together. That side of Fleetwood Mac I really enjoy. And I feel very comfortable working with Lindsey. Dare I say this with him present?" She casts an affectionate wink his way. "I have a lot of respect for this man; I don’t really imagine anybody else being able to do what he does with my songs.

"There have been many rough times," she continues, "but we’ve always ended up on some high note, standing around and jamming, or whatever, just really getting a charge out of playing together. It’s a joyous situation, and that takes over the bad points."

"That may have something to so with why Stevie is the way she is now," Buckingham suggests. "Because she is not a musician, she doesn’t share in that thing with use. She can feel totally out of her depth-which she is, on some levels-and you can understand why she doesn’t want to some down to the studio or be involved in certain things."

In spite of the overwhelming commercial success of her solo album, there is a certain, well, amateurish quality to Nick’s songs. The way she lays a lyric across a melody sometimes makes for awkward phrasing and contributes to the spaciness of her musical persona, as does her rather childish lyrical point of view regarding life and love.

Buckingham, Nicks’s former lover and bandmate of hers since the late ‘60s, when both were members of a Bay Area group called Fritz, admits to having always considered her songs "a little flaky." But, "there’s obviously something about her material that people relate to. She’s always been a little bit hard for me to take seriously, because I really appreciate a beat, having been weaned on Elvis and Little Richard and Chuck Berry.

"There’s something emotional that gets through, through, "he says, "and her voices so recognizable. I’ve been listening to Stevie sing for years and years, and when you’re that close to it, it’s easy to overlook certain aspects of anything."

"Stevie’s a very prolific," McVie notes. She writes constantly, and all her songs are like babies to her, even though some of them are rubbish. When I write, I sit down and work on an idea until it’s finished, but Stevie cranks out songs all the time."

Between her songs and the way she appears to be conducting her life, Stevie Nicks comes off as a modern-day equivalent to the movie queens of the ‘30s, reaching inside herself for some ill-defined personal misery to fuel her creative machinery. Buckingham says that in all the time he’s known her, ‘Stevie has never been very happy, and I don’t think the success of her album has made her any happier. In fact it may have made her less happy.

"She’s flexing come kind of emotional muscles that she feels she can flex now that she’s in a more powerful position. There’s a certain amount of leeway in how you can interpret Stevie’s behavior, I’d say , but at the same time there’s no denying that her success is making her feel that she can pull things that she wouldn’t have felt comfortable pulling before. And most of them aren’t particularly worthwhile, but she’s venting something-loneliness, unhappiness or something."

When a band member chooses not to participate fully in the process of making an album, it puts a certain kind of pressure on the people who do the work. Given the unique approach that Buckingham takes to record-making, it’s easy to see how an artist as moody as Stevie Nicks could second-guess what he doe’s to her material..

It’s in discussing the musicians’ studio relationship that he most complete picture of Fleetwood Mac emerges. Here, egos collide and coalesce for months on end; the pop magic that results has, ultimately, little to do with technology or technique, and everything to do with talented artists following the late sportswriter red Smith’s dictum on how to do your best work: "Open a vein and bleed."

"There’s an exquisite sense of checks and balances in Fleetwood Mac, and that’s one of the things that makes the band work ," Buckingham observes. "Everybody’s always checking each other out to a certain degree, not only in choosing the material but on every level of our creativity. Maybe that contributes to the albums taking as long as they do-it’s not the most efficient way to so things But it does seem effective in the end."

While it’s not unusual for a band member to walk into the studio, criticize the music and then walk out again, Buckingham is philosophical about it. "It’s just something you expect to happen from time to time," he says. "It just goes with the territory."

Fleetwood agrees. "We definitely have a problem sometimes with Stevie and John, but if they hate being in the studio then they certainly have less right to complain about what’s done. That’s just a matter of fairness-and that’s why I hate being away from the studio. There are usually two or three poignant moments during the making of an album where there are hurt feelings walking around-"What have you done to my songs:’ or that sort of thing. But there’s also a lot of stuff which is appreciated by others."

"Having a producer’s kind of mind, I might take something too far," concedes Buckingham, "but it’s better to have too much on a track and prune it back than to not have enough."

"Lindsey’s never that adamant about keeping a track a certain way," comments McVie. "If everyone says that they think it’s caca, then obviously he’s not going to feel happy about it being on there anyway."

Buckingham has been referring to Mirage as a "a reconciliation of opposites" from the time of the first sessions. "There are some aspects of Tusk and some aspects of Rumours," he explains, but Mirage is a much more of a band album than Tusk was. After Rumours sold 16 or 17 million copies, we had the freedom-and the courage -to try some other things.

"I got a lot of support from the band during the making of Tusk, but when it became apparent that is wasn’t going to sell 15 million albums, the attitudes started to change. That was sad for me in a way, because it makes me wonder where everyone’s priorities are. To me, the point of making records is to shake people’s preconceptions about pop."

Fleetwood says that making Tusk was crucial from a strategic standpoint. " It was no big master plan, really, but Tusk may be the most important album this band will ever do-strategically, apart from the music.

"If we hadn’t done Tusk, Lindsey would have a problem expressing himself within Fleetwood Mac," he continues, pointing out also that Buckingham extended his Tusk experimentation oh his solo album, Law and Order, and brought the fruits of his labors to bear more subtly on Mirage.

"One of the reasons Tusk happened the way it did was because I wasn’t doing any solo work," Buckingham says. " On Tusk I was doing a lot of things at my house, playing a lot of instruments myself, just like I did on Law and Order. That’s a valid approach to making records. But this time I wanted all my songs to be band songs, and result of that is an album that is a little less bizarre. Tusk had things that were good artistically, but it wasn’t good for the whole band, and I thought that I should limit that to my solo albums. If I want to be in a band, we should play as a band-and maybe the result of that is that Mirage is a little more traditional in some senses."

Traditional in every respect, one might say, except that 14 month passed between the first sessions (at Le Chateau in Herouville, France, later switching to Larabie Sound and the Record Plant in L.A.) and the album’s release. Buckingham quips that "Fleetwood Mac albums take about five years off your life," but is stumped when asked to explain why.

McVie jumps in. "Well, this particular one wouldn’t have taken quite so long had it not been for all the other albums (meaning Lindsey’s, Stevie’s and Mick’s solo LP’s) that were being made as well."

It’s fitting that McVie came to Buckingham’s aid when he was at a loss of words: although it’s not generally recognized, the two share a mutual respect for each other as musicians that pulls the band together in a special way. "I’m not really a writer. That’s not my strong point, lyrical or melody wise. "Trouble’ (on Law and Order) us a good melody, ‘Go Your Own Way.’ I’ve had my moments, but I don’t consider that to be my strong point at all. It’s the style involved."

Says McVie: "I don’t tell Lindsey, for example, ‘I want you to play such-and-such kind of guitar, that lick,’ That’s why Lindsey has got the (additional production credit on the album-he’s been largely responsible for helping to bring across on the record the atmosphere that I want to come over on a song that I write."

"She and I have a real valid kind of rapport between us," Buckingham continues, "something that was there before we even met. It’s like she can play the piano and I can play the guitar just wonderfully along with her. It’s almost like parallel lines during our formative years of music until we met, and it gave us a lot of common ground,."

For McVie, the bottom line is that "we play well together," referring to the entire band. "A lot of parts of Fleetwood Mac are really fun and rewarding. Of course, there are other people that we all play with and work with that are just as much fun, but not quite in the same way, I dare say, just because of the amount of years we’ve had together."

"When you play with other people, of course, it’s a lot of fun," Fleetwood states, "but I would say it’s very unlikely-certainly for myself-that this situation will ever happen again in the reference of a musical combination. That commitment’s really the reason why the band is still here."

With the mention of the word "commitment," the talk again turns to Stevie nicks. The disinterested observer can’t help but question her contribution as this point, but the musicians who work with her area bit more charitable in their analyses and deductions.

"There’ve been many times when she might come out in the studio and try and sing along, and we’d tend to say, "Don’t do that right now, let us work this out first," Says McVie. "Now she’s just go to the studio and go, "There’s no need for me to be here." She does feel left out."

Fleetwood’s take on the whole situation is that the process Fleetwood Mac goes through form day one in the studio through to the finished product is a highly-disciplined one, and that "Stevie doesn’t have the appreciation. She just emotes and goes into something, which is exactly her forte. But she does that all the time rather than being able to control and place where she does it-which is not a fault, it’s just the way it is."

But the key to understanding Fleetwood Mac in 1982 is not in wondering so much about the future without Stevie Nicks, but in understanding that the points, was and always has been to make good music, and have fun doing it. Maybe that’s why Fleetwood himself can seem so unconcerned when discussing Nicks-the band plays on, regardless. " That notion is the most important thing: appreciating in a non-belabored way that the key element with all the people make the mistake of being very boring, and realizing all to late that they are fucking boring. Then the magic’s gone; whatever’s there has long since passed you by.

"I consider myself very lucky to have been involved in a situation which had a lot of groundwork what led you to being able to make very objective, humorous analogies to what you’re doing, and having no puffed-up illusions about how important you are."

And at that point, the question of whether or not Mirage is the end of Fleetwood Mac as we now know it is moot. In fact, McVie says "it definitely isn’t.

"This band has lived from day-to-day for seven years or so, " she points out, "and there’s always been some kind of turmoil from within-that’s common knowledge. I’m quite sure we’ll go on for another seven years doing the same thing."

Forthcoming

2010-01-06T01:21:00.001-05:00

I present you with the cover of my next chapbook:

For more check out my new blog.

Dalida's Tomb (in progress)

2009-12-21T21:30:00.003-05:00

Ho Fatto l'Amore con Me

2009-12-21T21:28:00.002-05:00

A Digital Image and a Painting Done on Top.

Dissecting Interreference

2009-12-08T22:26:00.003-05:00

I could have spoken in the past
of pronoun trinities, but I
never knew who he and she were.
She is all prophecy while
he is all the apparitions of you.
Together we’ve done quite well
in progressing fictions of partnership,
conflations built on presupposed
love and understanding that concepts
are what tend to lessen the severity
of my face and your chest.
They were once pressed so closely
together I started referencing
without consulting her texts.
She saw this coming from the
obscure realm of experience.
If she was my opposite then,
now we have allied intent.
She says, “We’ve stuck
in this place for a while.”
He says, “No, not really,”
but you must know.

People often talk about dividing
names like a planetary shift of
vowels. I owe you nothing but
my new confidence in self-made
gravities. The context of what desire
repels turns unnecessary under weight
of uncalled for identity crises.
She and he have appliquéd concrete
expressions on our surfaces.
We are dutiful in part and becoming.
This scheme does allow room
for emotion: there is nothing
darker than the image on the wall.
Fear and pain are marks
of the marriage house we create.

He says, “See you,” like that’s what
delivered him into his hands. A word
master controls not himself:
for once I cannot draw the line.
I must merely assert a voice farther
and he will vanish. She and I
triumph then and the directionals change.
When this happens I will report.
Until then I count on what
lexicons he’s already catalogued and
what pantheons I still tread to make
up the difference and cloud
the planes between these heads.
Development comes in a conquest
of histories.

Trilobite In Progress.

2009-11-29T09:59:00.001-05:00

Here's the beginnings of my final drawing for fall, 77x100:

On Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T23:30:00.001-05:00

On TV, there are friends
going to parties with columns
of evergreen maple giving trees.
There are French acrobats drinking
out of Restoration cornucopias.
(That last one is like us,
a motif of pantheons and bike gangs.)
The friends dance, retire, resume,
eat cheesecake, and sleep alone.
They are self-made of images,
well coordinated to fill cheesy metaphors.

At these parties, there are
gifts of all kinds. She said the biggest
was from me of course since
words take up most space when
given to things with meaning.
Take this shortie, then, and maybe I'll
talk with the clarity of experience, or
like once upon a time, a link
between us gives new definition.
We may yet have places to go,
and I'll cuddle up to sleep in your
arms of unknown destinations.

You and me are like the stuff
filling Turkeys today, warm
and hopefully seasoned with dill.
You know some things consume
themselves when left to loving.
I used to think like this,
when thinking was all youth
had allowed me to do.
But who cares?
I love you anyway.

Dalida - Mourir sur Scene

2009-11-22T19:35:00.000-05:00

Error's Den

2009-11-17T15:58:00.003-05:00

"Into her mouth they crept, and suddain all were gone." - The Faerie Queene

Poem (To Keep You Down)

2009-11-16T20:54:00.000-05:00

I probably had a dream last night
that you were in, and I’m sure
it would have descended quickly
into expectations of genre, taste, etc.
You always told me to
aspire to the wordless body that
fills the night, but I don’t
get how selling a dream will
let me remember it better.

It came to this recently:
I look for reactionary meaning
or a mirror of tropes that
make up images in something
like a rumor. I haven’t heard
much in the way of you lately,
but I have felt an absence
like your softest silk symbols.
Talk to me in your dreams
again. I’ve unsatisfied so
many prophesies in the day
that they’ve begun to see
me no more than mystical
or ascetic in this nighttime
pragmatism. I never slept
with you, and now I
sleep without progress.
A dream is like a bed
we only nap in,
at least, so this vision says,
“You’ll know when.”

He Says No Not Really

2009-11-12T22:52:00.001-05:00

They are Near...

2009-11-12T21:51:00.001-05:00

For Something I Think is Finished

2009-11-11T14:59:00.001-05:00

He’s going to be reading this over there
very shortly over there before
I hope. You won’t anticipate
the feelings behind these lines
because I’m always unsure now
that I’m just as big a liar
as my friends and fingers lead me
to believe. I’d like to keep
writing for you if that might
make you less faceless
like me when I confessed and
in confessing was no longer me.
I am merely what I
hold inside, and you,
you are merely what you
read about me and love.
Let’s read that journal together again,
pretending outward our lives are what
we need but don’t want:
separation in time and taste
but unity in our rerestraint.
That’s saying a lot, for
you and me, and me.

11-11-09

Drawing One

2009-11-08T10:26:00.001-05:00

Hey guys.

My drawing class is having a show:

Come see it!

Mirage

2009-11-05T12:27:00.002-05:00

We Are Drawn and Quartered

2009-11-04T00:23:00.001-05:00

Make Some Noise.

2009-10-19T04:39:00.000-04:00

One of my all time favorite bands, the Noisettes, recently released a new album. It's called Wild Young Hearts. Much more smooth than their first album, What's the Time Mr. Wolf, but just as amazing. They've become much more popular since I came across them a few years ago, and they continue to impress me. They were even on David Letterman earlier this year! (He's my idol minus the current scandal... or maybe including?).

AND... You can get a free remix album called Wild Young Heartbreaks by clicking on this link (yes it's true): http://www.islanddefjam.com/artist/news_single.aspx?nid=5369&artistID=7385.

It's very good. You won't regret this decision.

2009-10-17T18:14:00.000-04:00

Sister Honey Plays the Matchmaker

2009-10-17T17:49:00.002-04:00

Natasha Poly delivers.

2009-10-16T16:02:00.002-04:00

I'm back already with a great video. Natasha Poly, Muse Magazine: http://models.com/mdx/?p=827

2009-10-15T01:14:00.002-04:00

COCOROSIE

Got to see Cocorosie in concert the other day-incredible! music! costumes! lights! instruments! it was a beautifully orchestrated performance, a wonderful piece of art!

http://www.cocorosieland.com/

2009-10-15T00:57:00.007-04:00

Chicago

Navy Pier

Fall in Chicago

A night of fireworks

Be Bea to be Better

2009-10-07T16:25:00.001-04:00

Bea Arthur's Subversive Sexuality

Mind-blowing, yet informative and ridiculous.

"If You Ever Did Believe"

2009-10-04T16:54:00.003-04:00

Today, for the first time, I connected with a Stevie Nicks song on a purely emotional level. Believe it or not, up until now it was all intellectual. (Even if my intellectual readings were a little one-sided.)

Stevie, I think we've reached new heights. I think I'm starting to get it.

Blancmange

2009-10-02T10:55:00.004-04:00

Feel Me - Blancmange

If the Talking Heads became a synthpop band in the 80s(instead of just a pop band like they became anyway, oh snap).

Mariah Channels Stevie

2009-10-02T10:43:00.003-04:00

Coincidence? I think not.

Vanity? I think so.

The Creation of Nuline/The Scarring of Lindessa

2009-10-01T13:42:00.003-04:00

Queen Luna was among Une
The most loved Eldar of her day.
Her beauty great and grace so grand
Would flow as essence from her hand.
And as the Eldar walked the plains,
The green’ry sprouted ‘mongst the grains,
And following her footsteps grew
The tallest trees to the towering blue.
Her gaze was as a flash of light,
That stuns the seer with beauteous might,
And Tarfakana’s roadways were
The cunning traveled course for her.
For as she followed water blue
Her gardens green would follow too,
And grace the people near to see
The face of Luna, “Dawn of Glee.”

Thus Luna was the love of all
And would be so until her fall,
And love for Luna was so great
That love for Maroe turned to hate,
When set with Luna’s grandest grace,
Among the many who saw her face.
For Luna was the most well-known
By those poor people whose fame had grown
Not through power, will, or might
But by their ignorance of the Light.
Those many who were still ungraced
By looking on fair Maroe’s face,
Had turned to Luna as their Queen
Who walked along the water clean.

So Luna’s power had grown great
When the Eldar changed her fate
And brought upon herself the task
Of rearranging powers vast.
And so she turned her lust for jewels
To break the might of Music’s rules
And took Salzafa’s realm of stone,
Made his domain her very own.

Though for a time she appeared to be
A student of his mastery,
Salzafa soon learned of her plan
To cheat the works made by his hand.
And so he cast her out that day
And closed his caverns from her way.
But prior to her time of leave,
Luna had time to retrieve
The greatest stones of King of Jewels,
For still Salzafa was just the fool,
Who lost the game of Lusize
Though in due time the Queen would pay.

For now Queen Luna hid away,
From light and dark, or night and day,
And held these jewels so near to her
That they could fuse and become pure,
Merging with Queen Luna’s realm,
Though neither did they overwhelm.
And deep in the jungles of Perilorze,
Queen Luna took her ancient lores
Of the many wonders of Creation
And used the stones as her foundation
To build a tree so great and fair
That it would tower to the highest air
And it would bear not flower nor fruit
But Luna’s Jewels on every shoot.
So “Nuline” was named the tree,
The most glorious that would ever be,
And its fruit was called “Diamunul,”
The most beautiful to be a jewel.

And so with Luna’s new domain,
Treason could not be contained.
And in due time the news would spread,
And Luna soon would come to dread,
What punishment may come to pass,
And thus she traveled far and fast,
To all her allies ‘cross the land,
And sought safe refuge by her hand.
And so the Diamunul lived on,
Whose mighty strength and willful brawn
Would shine in their great treachery
And haunt all in Une to be.

Myth 6-15-06
Painting 10-1-09

The Malare are Given Order

2009-09-23T13:02:00.003-04:00

There came a need for the Eldare without kinship to serve themselves. The threat of Gaurkon mounted daily on the edges of the void. People knew less of godly faces than their own, and this fact remains. Creation has removed ...our goddess, removed our god. Should we make our own instead? Eshemei conspired with the others. One at a time, they whispered secrets in her right ear and out the left came the Malare (for this is how life is made), fully robed in the colors of their makers. The first nine were thus the greatest, though some resembled animals and one indeed of Lindara was a mere flower, who some say has never stopped growing up, from her mother earth to the sky, high heavens where she knows her parents take dwelling forever distant. She emerged with the rest, fearless in their infancy and obedient in their inexperience, and did battle among the Lamps of Imaria.

Eshemei of the Scales, make in me a servant-blossom, that I may ascend likewise to the high lights and whisper you my own fears.

She judged right from wrong and came still to no conclusion on my divinity.

Vatican Art Summit

2009-09-16T13:54:00.002-04:00

Where's my invite, Benny?

Pope invites artists to Sistine Chapel.

I paint nuns! Nuns in space, no less!

The SN Journal, Now Presented Here (and something about Lady Gaga)

2009-09-11T12:52:00.006-04:00

So as some of you have been with The Orchid Club for the long haul know, I've been (slightly and inconsistently) at work on what I call the Stevie Nicks Journal, in preparation for a larger scale project (literary, visual, whatever) on the singer, her wackiness, and her lasting and unusually personal impact on the very essence of my life. That mad enough?

Well, in the journal I theoretically keep track of things that interest me about her: interviews, articles, pictures, my own feelings and theories/criticisms of her work.

But, why hide it? Embarassment? Shame? Worry that I will cease to have respect as an artist for my interest in someone who is undoubtedly one of the cheesiest rock stars of all time?

Perhaps, but no longer. From here out, the SN Journal will become fully incorporated into The Orchid Club, so you all can keep track of my mad and incoherent obsessiveness.

First up: Stevie Nicks and Lady Gaga. After the jump.

Check out this article here. It's a little silly, but it's particularly the kind of thing that interests me. I like chronology and hierarchies and direct lines of influence, so it seems appropriate to think of things this way.

I agree that SN was in many ways the first to exploit her look and style so effectively. Most women rock stars who came before her had to either ignore their femininity (Grace Slick, Janis Joplin) or sit behind a piano like a good little girl (Carole King, Carly Simon). And there's nothing really wrong with that. But SN and her generation of female rock stars (I'd put her alongside others like Kate Bush and Debbie Harry) found a way to play up their femininity in a unique way while making music that wasn't exclusively or overtly "feminine." And style had a lot to do with it.

So, yeah SN's style is a predecessor to that of someone like Lady Gaga. Though I can't say I really like her or her music, and I think that she may have more of a direct relationship to the similarly over-the-top Grace Jones (both in musical genre and personality), I don't have a problem being happy with the influence of SN.

(The Grace Jones Hood)

(The Lady Gaga Hood)

Of course, times have changed a lot since the 70s when SN started, so the comparisons aren't perfect. Back then, there was no paparazzi following musicians around 24/7. So, while SN exhibited her personal Dickensian gypsy style on stage and in photoshoots, she never had to live like that full time. She could effectively "turn off" Stevie Nicks and be her normal, non-iconic self. Today, someone like Lady Gaga has to be Lady Gaga all the time, day and night, even when getting a cup of coffee or shopping for toilet paper.

It's getting harder and harder to separate the self-created persona and the person, and who knows, maybe that is a good thing. Though, it may not be entirely honest.

2009-09-06T20:06:00.003-04:00

On youtube you can see a video from her last show where a special musical guest performed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l8ptD5u404&feature=related

and you can watch her felt, see how it's done!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-URnl9TckXA&feature=related

2009-09-06T19:48:00.004-04:00

Ashley Rose Helvey

Ashley and I met about four years ago when we both were working at Ambatalia, an organic and sustainable fabric store in Mill Valley. Ashley creates beautiful pieces of art by hand felting rugs, dresses, wall installations, bags, and much more-I am always inspired!

you can see more of her work at her website http://www.dankendanken.com/ and definitely check out her blog http://ashleyrosehelvey.blogspot.com/

one of the most recent fashion shows she did was at the Berkeley Botanical Gardens, you can see her designs at

http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu/program/event_des/Summer%202009/Green-gala-review.html

this summer she had a solo show at

check check check it out!!!

Cathy Was the First Single Lady

2009-09-01T23:46:00.008-04:00

Though I'm probably not the first to make the comparison, it is a comparison that needs to be considered. Kate Bush, apparently, was the first single lady. I can't believe I never realized this before now.

Let's compare.

"Wuthering Heights"
+ It's in a moor. With appropriately atmospheric fog.
+ Kate wins for costume. Nothing like Victorian Wicca Drag.
- Too many close-ups. We can't see enough of the wacky dance. And her make-up is a little too hooker-in-the-morning for my taste.
+ THE END WAVE OH MY GOD
- As great a song as this is, it doesn't inspire dancing in quite the same way.

"Single Ladies"
+ Backup dancers. Though, I'd be really afraid to see a "Wuthering Heights" video with backup dancers. Something tells me they would be dressed as Druids. Although...
- Backup dancers are merely Beyonce clones. But not Beyonce. So why bother?
+ Technical proficiency.
- Not terribly classy.
+ Dancing in a void means crazy shit happens. Maybe as crazy as the shit that happens in English moors. I can't say for sure.
- Beyonce is out of breath at the end. What, was it too much for you? Kate Bush friggin evaporates and all you can do is pant like a chihuahua in a leotard?!

WINNER: Kate Bush. Beyonce has a long way to go before she is as loopy or as talented as the Bush, Sasha Fierce or not.

Of course, there are a slew of videos up on youtube of people trying to copy both of these dances by crazy ladies. Yet, I have to say that so far the Beyonces seem to be beating the Bushes, so to speak. Perhaps if youtube was around 30 years ago when "Wuthering Heights" first came out we would have seen the same kind of fervor surrounding its choreography as we saw with "Single Ladies". Now, all that remains is the ultimate challenge: to beat Kate Bush at her own game.

Starting from Scratch

2009-08-31T16:20:00.002-04:00

Now, it's been a while since I posted last, and some things have happened. For one, I am no longer the only member of The Orchid Club (welcome Bridget and Steven!). For another, I completed a ton of work in Pont-Aven, most of which is viewable on our Flickr page. For third, the archives, after two summers' worth of work, is finally nearing completion. Only a few more sections of The Encyclopedia of Une need compiling and transcribing, then all that will be left for me to do is get some good quality scans of scan-worthy things.

So, with the end of the archives nearing, I've surprisingly found myself re-entering the realm of work on one of my BIG projects: The Elosanvia. I started The Elosanvia in what I believe was my sophomore or junior year of high school, with the poem called "The Invocation," which called upon the Goddess Tarfakana for inspiration. I had been intrigued for a while at the possibility of turning all my fictitious histories into an epic length poem, and "The Invocation" finally provided a start.

After years of revising, ignoring, adding to, and subtracting from The Elosanvia, I seem to have finally come back to it, reinvigorated by my more recent stylistic changes in how I write poetry (especially the still-ongoing Twitter Poetry). So, here, I present to you, for the first time ever, the first few sentences I've written for the restarted Elosanvia, right after the jump.

Imaria could not look about for comfort. The blackness under the sky was also above her, and she within it. The light was to come with the sacred sword, but not yet. The light had not yet been seen. The Queen could summon her subjects, but without her shape in place the power was too destructive. She instead took to the road far from here. It led out past where the land ended, and with the end of the land came the end of other life. None had stepped outside the bounds before since descending from Heaven. She, in full force, broke the barriers of the Koolac. The magic of the flat expanse had stopped and nothing at all returned. If I had been capable of this before I would have done better to bear the light. Without Elovanon, the Mother was with child. She was recreative in ushering forth the next age. Beyond the earth, she stayed and worked in silence.

Pray, Imaria, shed on us the light of your womb. For we now know only the broken light, and neither its truth nor the true dark may now illuminate our forward path. Go, now, unto your handiwork in the void. Bring forth the might of the One in now actual.

But she first bore doubts to the void, which scattered undead, some back to the earth.

2009-08-11T18:08:00.023-04:00

18 things i loved about pont aven

for my eighteenth year

the history

unexpected finds

new friends

the cat in the garden

exploring

tuesday market

the colors in the sky

daydreaming

dinner at la campagna

new places

picnics

field trips

open space

long lazy afternoons

pre-discotheque parties

treasures at the flea market

bretan butter cake

good cheap wine

2009-08-10T18:20:00.003-04:00

2009-08-10T17:52:00.007-04:00

back from a month in Pont Aven, Bretagne, France

it has been one week since i flew back from France and i am already scheming, trying to figure out how i can go back as soon as possible! we took classes at the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art for one month and stayed with host families, the town of Pont Aven was charming and everywhere i needed to be was walking distance away (it was refreshing to not be in a car all the time,) the people there were extremely friendly and happy to see us learning about the history of Pont Aven and to be making our own art inspired by the magical place.

something that was extremely special about being there was that everyone got their own studio space, i loved my studio! it was situated in the corner with one huge window and one wall that was stone, it was spacious and had lots of wall space, on a daily basis my studio space was changing (what was on my desk, what was hung on the wall, what art piece i was working on was always changing,) here are some photos of my studio space

one of my favorite things to do was walk around and look at different people's studios, one's workspace reflects their personality, style, and work so much-it is fun to check out. also i love to see drawings, paintings, etc. during the process, at all the different stages it takes before finally getting to the final product

Pont-Aven Flickr Uploads

2009-08-04T11:14:00.003-04:00

Back from the intensive month of study in Pont-Aven, France, and what I have to show for it is a slew of new pictures posted to The Orchid Club's Flickr photostream here. I really need to get some professional photos of these taken.

Here's a sampler of the work:
More info on all this stuff and more developments to the blog to come soon.

New Flickr Uploads

2009-06-15T16:15:00.003-04:00

Check out more media on The Orchid Club's Flickr account here. Included in this update are "Chimera," Eldare Portraits, the Arrows of Time series, "Piano Cage," "Voodoo Giraffe," "John D. Rockefeller," "Wedding Toast," stills from "Stimuli," "J'Obtiens Toujours Ce Que Je Veux," and "To Blush."

Stimuli

2009-06-02T15:27:00.002-04:00

Geometric projections on suspended white tule.
Final project for Hybrid Art with Richard Fishman and Ian Gonsher

LINK

LINK

LINK

Back to the Archives

2009-06-02T14:58:00.005-04:00

Well the "major updates" to the Orchid Club blog are going to have to wait just a little bit longer. I've recently gotten back into THE ARCHIVES, and I'm hoping to make some serious progress toward finishing them this summer.

In the meantime, please do continue to check out my work-in-progress TWITTER POETRY here. I'm up to 29 mini-poems of exactly 140 characters!

The problem with working on THE ARCHIVES is just how daunting it is to look back on all of my old work and put some kind of finality to it. On one hand, archiving my old work is me finally admitting I'll never finish it. The closest I can hope to get is to just accept these works as unfinished. (Does simply saying that make them actually finished, though?)

But on the other hand, it's a lot of fun to read through my old writing. It gives me a great chance to laugh at myself (especially when I look at all my adolescent Pre-Orchid Club Poetry). Yet, reading through more recent glossary entries in something like The Encyclopedia of Une or the Akmae um Unelde, I'm amazed by the depth and breadth of these imagined worlds and stories. Problem is, by "recent" I mean 2006. How has it been so long? The distance is so great now that I feel rather disconnected from their original creation. It seems like someone else, not me, wrote those words. How can I ever expect to go back and edit my work when it doesn't even feel like my work anymore?

That might be the last big conflict that has slowed my work on THE ARCHIVES down. I really want to just organize all my work as it stands, to transcribe handwritten pages and gather scraps of info and stories together. But, in doing that, I have a strong urge to actually get back into writing, to edit everything and bring it up to date. I just don't have time for all this. (I'm not an industrious person.)

I'd like to keep this blog updated on my progress, though. So maybe I will post bits and pieces from THE ARCHIVES here as I finish them. Maybe.

Now on Flickr

2009-05-17T00:11:00.002-04:00

Follow The Orchid Club on Flickr...images will be posted constantly (unless I meet the damn upload limit).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theorchidclub/

Stay Tuned

2009-05-15T16:08:00.004-04:00

Some major updates coming soon!

I'm back for (most of) the summer, so I plan to catch up on a lot of things, this site included. I'm also going to be wrapping up the ARCHIVES that I started work on last summer, and hopefully sharing some updates on works that have been in progress but haven't been posted here yet.

More to come in the next few weeks...

BWP

Twitter Poetry: Birth

2009-04-14T12:39:00.001-04:00

Introducing: Twitter Poetry

http://twitter.com/theorchidclub

courtesy of
Orchidia
Omnimedia,
yo

Stop Motion

2009-04-10T22:22:00.000-04:00

To Blush

2009-04-10T22:21:00.002-04:00

Sheena Easton

2009-04-10T22:16:00.002-04:00

I told you I'd post
Sheena Easton under my favorite music.
The question of embarrassment
is answered by irony.
We each have a pantheon
of tabs--my info god
reads aloud a linked personality.
I find another Sheena Easton,
she in France or Buffalo or here
on my screen with me.
My cursor traces the curves
of her face, tickling the possibilities
that she clicked Sheena Easton, too,
that I'm with her,
that I'm now everywhere
my joke carries through.
Click me forever but
touch me not.
I'm so beautiful in 12-point
black and white.

Wall-to-Wall

2009-04-10T22:10:00.002-04:00

A new homepage like
a birthday candle.
My wrinkles crack
white and blue,
a font growing closer
to Arial on my forehead.
My friendships loop
interlaced pixels and
I thought of adding resolution.
One more request unresolved,
or just, "Remove from my events."
The live embarrassment bears
on my news.
There is no news anymore.
Oh, I could poke you, you see
if it weren't for the
reciprocal loneliness
of the blank homepage.
I could post an eyeball
or lock of my hair to see
the overwhelming applause.
I have invaded your home
and may never die.
But the last status marks
June 29, 1989:
Logged Out.

Developments

2009-02-19T16:12:00.004-05:00

Well I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. I'm still here, at work, working, and working. For proof you can download the latest episode of The Radio Show here. It's actually surprisingly good. I'm looking into ways of podcasting The Radio Show, as well as any future longform audio projects from The Orchid Club.

I've been feeling lately that I need a little time to reevaluate what I really want from The Orchid Club and to come up with a plan of action of how to make this happen. Right now, I'm treating this blog very aimlessly and unprofessionally, and I doubt that's what I really want from it.

Oh and here's a piano I made with partner Gus Wenner in my Hybrid Art class:
I'm reading a "personal biography" of Salvador Dali by close friend Amanda Lear. I'm concluding that in order to live my artistic life as I want, what I need most of all is 1.MONEY and 2.POWER.

I must devote myself to the acquisition of those two things. Oh, and I could also use an entourage of courtiers.

I'll be around. Trust me.

The Radio Man

2008-12-03T18:08:00.002-05:00

Radio is taking over my life, one small FM frequency at a time. BSR has my venture The Radio Show, which finally made its first two archives since my last post. Here are some links you can follow to the archives at bsrlive.com. Stream forever!

1.4: We Are Family

1.5: Boys (Short Fiction Class)

You can ch-ch-check these two babies out when you have a chance. In the meantime, the final episode of the season airs 12/15 at 8:30pm, as if you care.

ALSO> I continue to work like a good little boy on my Lizzy Mercier Descloux project, the first installment of FAN MAIL, which will be a recurring segment on The Radio Show (and maybe a chappy one-day-too!).

Today, I interviewed Richard Hell, a legend of the punk scene in New York in the 70s. He was really nice on the phone and seem genuinely interested in the project and happy that I'd chosen Lizzy to profile. He shared some interesting tidbits about Lizzy that I think are going to be very important to the piece's outcome.

I am also working on a translation of one of her poems, ONE FIFTH. Here's the French:

Un apres midi d'ancres jetees par
les fenetres: je sonne, le mains saignees
dans ma poches a dedales. L'ecouter
glisser derriere les parois soutenues
de la porte. Rechigner. Surtout ne pas
m'ouvrir! Je m'affale en sac de linge sale.
L'altitude, les cents pas?
Je me prends a resserrer une sangle
qui n'existe ni d'E... ni d'A...,
une tonsure a la nuque. Elle se
gratte de 'autre cote d'un crin-crin
circulaire; de la scie musicale sans doute.
Hep! ma queue de cheval.
Un desordre de mots en coup de trique;
bastil... Patt...
autosat...
Je m'appretais a l'assaillir,
stetoscope en vrac lorsqu'elle me balanca
un seau bruyant d'eau morte et je sous Elle.

(sans accents, desolee!)

This poem is from the book she published with ZE Records in the 70s, DESIDERATA. I found some scans online on a LMD tribute site. According, to Richard Hell, Lizzy never really took her poetry that seriously. Nor did she take her music that seriously, apparently.

Maybe that's why she's always seemed so mysterious. Usually, you get a good sense of a person by their art, and although that is true to an extent with Lizzy, something's always been missing.

So the project continues to trudge along. I'm not so certain where it's going but I think it'll turn out well.

Love to Hear Percussion

2008-11-04T22:53:00.005-05:00

We aired the third episode of The Radio Show, but for some reason, the archives at BSR are once again not working. I would like to share these episodes so maybe I can upload them to megaupload or something else soon.

The process of putting together the show has exposed me to a program Brown's music department offers called MEME (Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments). They seem to be doing a lot of interesting stuff, sort of like my simultaneous songs but much more focused and much more polished.

I also want to learn to play an instrument. I'm not sure which one, though. I played piano when I was younger but never kept up with it. I'm considering bass guitar, upright bass, cello, or going back to piano/keyboards. I don't know.

I guess that's it. What, you expected more?

Routinely Posted

2008-10-21T23:58:00.004-04:00

You see more simultaneous songs below this I'm sure, which means that no I haven't fallen off the face of Providence. More chapbooks are in the pipeline from my head to my hand, one is a smidgen of a taste of the SN project, called Stephanie: an Orchid Club Idolatry; the other, of course, is called Poetic Pornographies: an Orchid Club Indulgence. (Don't worry your senses, its not what you think.) Following the staggering success of Zoology last spring, I need to keep productivity up and up as the Dow Industrial goes down and down. I remain both standard and poor, so printing costs may delay production, along with the fact that I've only written two poems for these projects so far.

The Radio Show is running along fairly well. Two shows have aired so far, but no archives were made so there's no point in posting a link here. You have seen, however, that for me to stream those simultaneous songs featured below online, I've set up an account with Imeem for The Orchid Club.

Would you like some shorthand? Yes I think so.

LP Poems-collections of 12 song-length poems, divided into sides a & b
serious discourse on the poetic merits of SN lyrics
Catholic Courtesy
poem about The North Face
SN in stages: Klonopin, Cocaine, etc.
LB quotes Emily Dickinson, SN quotes Edgar Allan Poe
ah, life is the desperate scream before the gunshot
translating texts, works of art from one sense to another
"FAN MAIL" a new show for BSR in spring 2009
Anne Bradstreet for Arfea:

"Oh time the fatal wrack of mortal things,
That draws oblivion's curtains over kings,
Their sumptuous monuments, men know them not,
Their names without a record are forgot,
Their parts, their ports, their pomp's all laid in th' dust,
Nor wit nor gold, nor buildings scape time's rust,
But he whose name is graved in the white stone
Shall last and shine when all of these are gone."

I think that's all for now. I will surely return with a cornucopia of poems and graphics for these pretty new chappies.

More Simultaneous Songs

2008-10-21T23:44:00.006-04:00

The first simultaneous song of this batch is more in line with the original three. Yet, with less songs, and less diverse artists I think this maintains a certain higher degree of cohesion. It features Lizzy Mercier Descloux's "Wawa," Rosa Yemen's "Herpes Simplex," and Nico's "It Has Not Taken Long" and "You Forgot to Answer."

Simultaneous Song 4 - The Orchid Club

The next simultaneous song is actually only one song repeated six times. This is Dusty Springfield's "In the Middle of Nowhere."

Simultaneous Song 5 - The Orchid Club

The last simultaneous song of this batch is more like a simultaneous album. I took all six tracks from Kraftwerk's The Man Machine album, condensed them to match in time, and layered them over one another. Now, you can listen to the entire album at once.

Simultaneous Song 6 - The Orchid Club

A Summer Recap

2008-09-02T21:19:00.005-04:00

Well, the summer is now over and before I get into the thick of school, I wanted to do a quick wrap-up of what did (and didn't) get done this summer and what lies ahead.

First, a shorthand update:

Video games need to have constant intellectual stimulation in order to approach the realm of art, not just repetitive action framed by an interesting story
Music whose rhythm is controlled by the performer's pulse beat at any given time of performance
Stevie Nicks vs. Kate Bush
Something for Estelle Getty
Having a wide range of artistic products that appeal to people of all demographics
Explore contour lines, as in Self Portrait with First Love
The Village People Phenomenon: tricking stupid people into liking something whose values are the complete opposite of said stupid people
Rouge on the eyes to look sick?
Envy as the driving human vice, behind empathy, behind fandom, entertainment, celebrity, the other "sins"
A music counseling service, Feliz's poetry hotline
developing Orchidia, The Orchid Club into a brand
Having my art be "sense neutral", not hearing, seeing, etc. as different and separate sensations but as one "sense"
Radio game shows
"Men create and women interpret"- any truth?

So what else? Well, I did spend a good deal of time on the archives. Scanning all my old marble comics took much longer than expected, but all 7 original volumes plus a few extras were scanned (that's close to 1400 pages!!), so now I finally have a digital copy of all that should something ever happen to the originals. This also makes it much easier for me now to access any of the comics without having to lug around the notebooks everywhere I go.

I've been thinking also recently about just what it is I want the Orchid Club to be, how it should start and what it's ultimate goals and aspirations are. I've started jotting down some ideas about what possibilities are in store and what under perfect circumstances I would like it to become, but I'm still not settled. I will, however, be sure to post whatever mission statement I come up with whenever I come up with it.

Something else of interest coming up is The Radio Show, a new show of mine on BSR. It is a feature team show (I'm the features director at BSR), and I hope it will become somewhat of an institution at the station, doing for the features department what Off the Beat does for the news department. It's format is wide open, meaning anyone who wants to submit to the show can do so and I'm accepting all sorts of submissions, from radio drama and spoken word, to documentary and original music. This way, I'd like to portray and prove the breadth of possibility radio offers.

With The Radio Show and the second season of Heaven is a Disco coming up, this semester should be a busy one for me at the station. I look forwad to making some pieces of my own for the new show, and I'll be sure to put that up on here, since I won't be having any studio art classes this semester.

The Archives

2008-07-26T19:01:00.000-04:00

Almost a month since my last update, but I have been doing something, even if it's nothing particularly exciting. Namely, I've been working on making an archive of all my writing and artwork--typing some things up, scanning others, filing/reorganizing it all.

Trying to get everything organized has been a bit of a challenge. But I bought a nice little plastic file box to put all the papers/discs in. I've also been scanning my original copybook comics, so far only a handful of the volumes, but I hope to get more done soon so I can finally have digital copies of them should something happen. (I've also started referring to them collectively as Marble Comics har-de-har-har).

It has been nice though to catch up on all the old stuff I've written/drawn/etc. and remind myself of how far I've come, particularly in this last year. It's also allowed me to get some perspective on how all my different projects fit together and seem to play off of one another. Then again, it seems like I always end up doing this during the summer, when I don't feel like actually doing anything new, I just resort to reorganizing and editing my old stuff. But it's something, and this time around at least I feel like the organization is actually worth something--all too much this past year I felt like I was losing track of so much information.

But basically, that's what I've been up to. I did finally start keeping a SN log to get going with that, but who knows how fast that will move along.

Shorthand Recap 1

2008-06-27T11:06:00.002-04:00

During my Intermediate Poetry Class last semester, I decided to start keeping a little notebook full of ideas so I wouldn't forget them down the line. Now, I guess it wouldn't be fair if I just kept them in there this whole time, so I'm going to start posting (probably weekly) recaps of notes I've taken for that week.

This time we'll have some of the notes since I started taking them down back in May:

Poetry readings as rock concerts, fashion shows, entertainment
Words and letters are visual and audio, Images are visual alone, change this?
History is visual, poetry is audio?
All artists want to do is take up more space
Casserole
Perfect pop song is 2:42 long
Dionysus, an ode to
Comic poetics, gutters as line breaks, "spoken" parts in speech bubbles
Polytheism accounts for suffering
Poems as Q&As
Lip-syncing poems
Reality TV as a new Surrealism
Music genealogy
"Band Changing Albums" ie. Autoamerican, Tusk, Mesopotamia: albums that reached into daring new creative territory and prevented the band from ever sounding the same as their "classic" selves
Lizzy Mercier Descloux and life-affirming music
Three types of musicians: performance (ie. Blondie), conceptual (ie. Talking Heads), cathartic (ie. Fleetwood Mac)
Self-prophetic autobiography
Make an Archive of EVERYTHING you do (in case of emergency)
Debbie Harry & David Byrne as female/male equivalents in the role of drastically changing what it means to be a lead singer/frontperson; DH-fierce sexuality in contrast to feminism and "good girls"; DB- nerdy intellectualism in contrast to glam androgyny and rock macho
Kairos in relation to Arfean Artistic Expression: success? failure?
Music/art "playlists"; playlist poems
Is order inherently counter-productive in the creative process? Sense-making themes?
Celebrity Myspace
Is a simultaneous song just a high-brow, low-quality excuse for a mash-up? Where's Girl Talk?
Sculptures in paper money of different consumer items; Use the exact amount of paper money it would otherwise cost to buy the item depicted (Has this been done before??)
The importance of being quotable to success
Conceptual artists must by nature experiment in all art forms
What it takes for an artist to be a celebrity and why Andy Warhol was the last one (does Yoko count?)

Grace Jones, "Corporate Cannibal" and AARP Artists

2008-06-24T22:26:00.005-04:00

So Grace Jones performed some new stuff from her upcoming album at Massive Attack's Meltdown in London last week, and this video of the song "Corporate Cannibal" was used as an intro to the show. And it's pretty frickin awesome.

Reviews of the show aside (which have been particularly glowing), I'm just glad to see a strong female artist in her 60s, whose creative peak was all the way back in 1981, continue to make strong artistic statements. I've been worried as of late about the generational disparity between artists from thirty years ago and artists from today. In many ways, the New Wave music that I love so much has been the biggest single influence on today's best groundbreaking musicians. Yet, for whatever reason, the same New Wave artists who were so cutting edge some thirty years ago seem to have lost track of what is "new" today. I don't know if this is something that happens when every artistic generation passes the torch off to the next (I suspect it is), but this is the first time I've really noticed it, especially because a lot of my favorite artists from the 70s and 80s have come out with reunion albums in the 2000s that, while certainly good, fail to spark in me the same excitement that I had when I first heard, say, Hercules and Love Affair's "Athene". Why is it that right after most artists break ground, they stick to the straight and narrow of that once cutting edge sound?

Some cases:
The B-52's Funplex
Blondie's The Curse of Blondie
Tom Tom Club's The Good the Bad and the Funky
Donna Summer's Crayons
Fleetwood Mac's Say You Will
The Pretender's Loose Screw

Yet there are also a handful of artists who, despite being most recognized for their innovations decades ago, maintain at least some sense of being "current." Or, even if they don't fit in with current musical trends, they at least continue to try new things within their own once ground-breaking style.

Some more examples:
David Byrne's Grown Backwards
Debbie Harry's Necessary Evil
Lindsey Buckingham's Under the Skin
Yoko Ono's Yes, I'm a Witch
...I'm sure there are others but I'm just speaking of what I know.

(Curiously, Blondie's 1999 album No Exit, their first since 1982, seems to be the exact perfect blend of old and new, while their 2003 follow up, The Curse of Blondie, while good and safe, failed to take any real steps forward)

Is this something that happens within every other art form? I have to admit that I don't really stay on top of what some of my favorite artists and writers from decades ago are doing today, which probably explains why I'm just noticing this with musicians. Is there ageism built into the artistic community, which forces the innovators to be imprisoned by their innovation as years pass? Are there certain expectations we have of older artists to "sound like" themselves, even when their definition of self has changed drastically? Or is it the artist's fault? Do they simply like to rest on their laurels and play it safe after finding a formula that works?

In my opinion, it's all of those reasons and probably many more. But I have to say that it really bothers me that older artists (whose new albums could/would sell well enough to warrant radio airplay) continue to go unregarded on commercial radio (and thus in younger markets). I don't think it used to be this way in the past, at least up into the 80s. I guess that as youthful images became more important to album/single sales throughout the 90s, the wrinkled bunch got pushed to the side.

That's what I get for liking music most from the past.

Biding Time

2008-06-19T21:57:00.006-04:00

So I wanted to brag a bit and say that I'm going to see Blondie in NYC this weekend. Just so ya know.

Debbie Harry dressed up as Stevie Nicks for the Night of 1,000 Stevies. Fo real.

The other unproductive tendencies continue as usual. I think I have a title though. I'm not sharing yet. Oh, and they found ice on Mars today, which I guess is pretty nifty. I decided to start keeping notes for the impending SN project, but I have yet to actually start keeping any.

Interim as a YF&B

2008-06-11T17:28:00.004-04:00

So, I don't know what's happened to me. Last semester, I was writing poetry, designing books, making art, editing audio and video; now, I'm working a day job doing medical filing, watching CNN, and reading a book about personal finance.
I guess this summer is practical time for me. And a big lesson in life on what I DON'T want to do for the rest of my years. Though I haven't stopped thinking of some creative endeavors altogether. One project which is a priority right now (or will at least become one in the fall) is a new radio show on BSR I'm taking over called the Mystery Features Adventure Show, founded originally by my predecessor at the station Shawn Wen. I've started thinking a bit about what types of pieces I'd like to produce myself, since I definitely need the experience with ProTools and recording equipment. It's a team show, which means I'll have to solicit pieces on a regular basis from others at the station, but I imagine that until the show really gets rolling I may have to do a lot of the work myself. So far I've considered doing some on-air poetry readings, hopefully including some Brown students and faculty, maybe even some community folks, also exploring a musical genealogy of genre and style, talking about New Wave (especially its female artists), and hopefully some more audio experiments in the vein of my simultaneous songs.

I also still want to write more Stevie Nicks poems for my next chapbook, whatever final form it might take. Oh, and read a sample from this interview I found online. Absolutely ridiculous:

Q. When can we expect the next Stevie Nicks studio project?

A. I don't know. That's why I'm doing more greatest hits and going back in the vaults and finding cool stuff that might bring people out to Borders and Starbucks to buy a record. I can do a solo record, but what will happen is 1,000 hard-core fans will buy it and push the send button and send it to 5 million others. That makes me wonder, why bother? People are stealing our songs. Link

Just another example of our strange relationship. Meanwhile you have forward thinkers (from the same musical generation as Nicks!) like David Byrne and even her bandmate Lindsey Buckingham realizing that the music industry has changed drastically and accepting its new possibilities. If you're an artist, it's your job to create. She's letting herself die by thinking like this. And it's just completely disrespectful to her fans, even if there are only 1,000.

I still really want to learn to play bass at some point, too.

Videotrack for Inter(media)te Poetry...with Sound!!

2008-05-10T17:26:00.001-04:00

Now featuring a snippet from Fleetwood Mac's "Storms"

More Simultaneous Songs

2008-05-10T17:14:00.002-04:00

Done as the final project for my Dada and Surrealism Class. Here we have:

Simultaneous Song #2

Simultaneous Song #3

This batch features more songs from Fleetwood Mac, Yoko Ono, Stevie Nicks, David Byrne, Talking Heads, Debbie Harry, Bow Wow Wow, and Buckingham Nicks.

Serbiran Enthroned

2008-05-09T02:26:00.003-04:00

hybridizing human and animal

Videotrack for Inter(media)te Poetry Reading

2008-05-09T01:50:00.000-04:00

Isabella Rossellini, "Green Porno"

2008-05-07T17:13:00.004-04:00

You have to watch these: Green Porno by Isabella Rossellini

Theresa Exiting

2008-05-01T17:04:00.002-04:00

and no photo manip, so take that

In Progress: Zoology

2008-04-30T00:42:00.003-04:00

Coming soon, the first official Orchid Club publication, brought to you by yours truly and the F. Molina school of Inter(media)te Poetry.

About the Moon and Her Sisters

2008-04-24T23:30:00.004-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about this chapbook we have to make for our final, as well as the reading that has to accompany it. I'm definitely excited about both, but I also get the feeling that I'll end up making something I'm not entirely happy with just for the sake of not having any better ideas.

For instance, I'd really like to continue (after my poem Skylark) with a series for Stevie Nicks. Corny, I know, but I can't ignore this strange fascination I've had with her and her music for the past 6 years now. The more I read about her the less respectable as an artist she seems to me, but in some way this also makes my attraction to her music that much more interesting. I don't even like a majority of her music any more. I guess my tastes have changed. Yet there are some songs of hers that I just absolutely love, finding some strange mystical quality in them. Anyway, Stevie and I have a strange relationship right now. I'd really like down the line to do a whole series of poems to her and about her, utilizing some aspect of her discography as an organizational tool for the series. I had been hoping this could be the final chapbook, but I just don't see how I can make anything that substantial in time.

Then, I have to think about the performance aspect. Lately I've been thinking more and more about how I want my poems to be read or performed, especially in light of my distaste for Spoken Word and other current trends. Is is wrong of me to want to be a poet who takes the stage like a rock star? The problem is, I just don't know how to go about doing any of this. I feel like poems have an intrinsic audio quality that begs to be read aloud, but I need to think of some different way to present the words on a page. It also doesn't help that I want to somehow incorporate visual arts into these so-called audio arts. How? I have absolutely no clue. I've been thinking that there's something about Prose that is visual and Poetry that is audio, but what exactly? It this to say the images conjured by poetry shouldn't be seen (imagined) but rather heard (real)? How can I synthesize my poetry and my art? I'm sure I can't be the first one to be all broken up by this.

Vasculitis

2008-04-23T20:41:00.002-04:00

Birds of Paradise

2008-04-22T21:09:00.002-04:00

Fog poured not

in showers but oceans

and nothing else

I filled my nostrils with

air as usual--inhaled

a breath with water so

close to being solid so

near to being real that

I could hardly wait to--exhale

its white lies through my skin

And though some could argue

I'm not a fish I

tell them in water-space

what exists between me

and fog tonight:

Tha vacuum of droplets

that wheezes explanations

why I a penguin

may swim and fly together.

The Lust of Quiamas

2008-04-22T13:36:00.003-04:00

another oldie but still one of my favorites

Wedding Toast

2008-04-22T13:32:00.001-04:00

an old one that i kinda forgot about (my last one with akiko)

Voodoo Giraffe

2008-04-22T13:28:00.003-04:00

not really pleased with it but que sera sera. i wanted people to look into this and feel in danger of getting hepatitis

Yoko Ono, "Greenfield Morning"

2008-04-21T20:03:00.000-04:00

Demeter

2008-04-20T16:27:00.003-04:00

The lady who deals

rubber cement and Tylenol

like rain or sweat or

no, like falling urine leaves

from cancerous oaks and

the lady who deals

in gelcap serpents when

the worms of youth

in self-bulimia have

finally learned why death

is pharmaceutical and

the lady who deals

for refilled stomachs

churning oil more than acid

saliva and red wine—

she has taken to the hills

and awaits our return.

The Meate Calendar (uncolored)

2008-04-07T15:10:00.003-04:00

Skylark (for Stevie Nicks)

2008-04-07T15:07:00.003-04:00

Cocaine holes made by flipping dimes

sing of romance and subtlety

while I, in goat-like aspiration

write how words are greater than or equal to myself.

When did your soft Welsh breath become

the plastic fluoride shell around me?

When did tales of witchcraft cease

enthralling ears with ill-advised harmonies?

Synthetic black chiffon alone can tell why

voices launched by song rumble with absurdity

and penning seriousness can be so fatal.

I refuse sneezing into old age

with just empty cinematography

and a legion of fans,

but when news came of your face-lift,

I admitted disappointment with a thud.

I will rather perch on your ledge and

yes, we will salivate together.

Simultaneous Song

2008-04-06T23:15:00.006-04:00

An abusive combo of David Byrne's "The Red House", Debbie Harry's "Oasis", Lime's "Agent 406", and Grace Jones' "Operattack" and "La Vie en Rose".

Inspired (as always) for Poetry II by Tristan Tzara's simultaneous poem, "The Admiral Looks for a House to Rent".

Listen.

Redesigning The Hunter

2008-03-11T21:18:00.003-04:00

The Delmarva

2008-03-10T14:31:00.000-04:00

.NEAR TERM

I CAN SEE SOME MAJOR DIFFERENCE

BECAUSE OF THE WARM AIR ADVECTION

THE POCONOS

WILL COME THROUGH BETWEEN

THE NORTHERN ZONES

AND HAVE OPTED TO DROP

A NEW SET OF NUMBERS

WINDS AND SEAS CONTINUE

AND POSSIBLY

I`LL KEEP WITH THE EXISTING

HIGHS FOR TUESDAY

THE BEST LIFT

WILL SLIDE EAST TODAY

IF WE SEE A DIFFERENT MODEL

SURFACE SYSTEMS

EXPECTING ANY EXAGGERATION

WILL STICK WITH FORECAST

.SHORT TERM

THIS WILL BE A DAMP PERIOD

REGARDLESS OF WHICH MODEL

IS HOVERING SLIGHTLY ABOVE

ANOTHER CYCLE

LOOSES SUPPORT TO INTENSITY

THEN FLATTENING OUT

TEMPERATURES RECOVER FAST

BUT STILL PARTLY

FARTHER OFFSHORE

THE JET STREAM WILL SLIDE

.LONG TERM

THERE SHOULD THEN BE FAIRLY TRANQUIL

MORNING PACKAGE ISSUANCE

IMPULSE MOVES EAST AND BRINGS

NOT ALL SNOW

FROM NOVA SCOTIA

SPEED SHEAR AND WARM AIR

IS BEING HELPED

BUT PERIODS ARE LONG

AND TAKE LOW SOUTH OF US

Jane Seymour Lives!

2008-03-03T14:11:00.005-05:00

Went home this weekend and then to New York for the day. While in NY, saw Mrs. Day at the ArtExpo, held in the Javits Convention Center. Jane Seymour was also selling some of her art, god bless her, alongside Norman Rockwell and Thomas Kinkade. We exchanged longing glances, I'm sure of it.

Then went up to MoMA with the fam to see the "stuff" there. Sadly, Dali was on tour. But in accordance with my Dada & Surrealism class I paid close attention to Duchamp, Schwitters, and Ernst wherever they appeared. Also saw a neat-o Chagall. And then we went to the Nintendo Store and acted like tourists in Rockefeller Center (the Rock, but a different one).

Now I'm back in lovely PVD. Amen.

Hawaii Chair to solve world hunger.

2008-03-03T14:07:00.002-05:00

NEW YORK (AP)—New evidence in a Columbia University study points to the remarkable power of the Hawaii Chair. It will eliminate all static electricity from carpets, sweaters, and hair. When the Hawaii Chair becomes president, it will lower taxes. When it gets married, it will never cheat on its wife. The Hawaii Chair will increase penis size by 3-4 inches. It will save you 50% or more on car insurance and never ask you to reveal your password. By 2009, the Hawaii Chair will only broadcast in full HD. The Hawaii Chair will sweep the Academy Awards in all categories but Best Supporting Actress, which will go to Cate Blanchett. The Hawaii Chair is live from New York it’s Saturday Night! In the event of an emergency, the Hawaii Chair will walk, not run, to the nearest exit. It will be preparing for the final descent into New York-LaGuardia Airport in 10 minutes. The Hawaii Chair will love thy neighbor as thyself. The Hawaii Chair brought down the Soviet Union without the help of Margaret Thatcher. The Hawaii Chair always turns the other cheek. The Hawaii Chair denounces Japanese whaling. It will soon cost $105.00 a barrel in accordance with OPEC. The Hawaii Chair is NOT the father, but it is a cat person. When asked if it was a fan of Bono, the Hawaii Chair said, “No.” The Hawaii Chair gave birth to Oprah and the exclamation point. The Hawaii Chair can’t believe it’s not butter. The Hawaii Chair invented sliced bread. It will buy the cow even though it gets the milk for free. Its great-great-grandfather abolished slavery. The Hawaii Chair is also the Holy Grail. Jackson Pollock stole his paintings from the Hawaii Chair, which was also the original bassist for the Beatles. The Hawaii Chair replaced the stolen cookie in the cookie jar. When asked for directions, the Hawaii Chair knew the way to San Jose. The Hawaii Chair always looks 10 years younger. It puts its pants on both legs at once. The Hawaii Chair is the new 9^th planet. The Hawaii Chair is so fat, it sat on a rainbow and Skittles popped out. The Hawaii Chair is the main ingredient in clam chowder. It contains no trans fat. Women who are pregnant or may become pregnant should not take the Hawaii Chair. The Hawaii Chair may have already won the grand prize in the Publisher’s Clearinghouse. The Hawaii Chair lives in the hearts of fresh rainbows unicorns, and Catholics. In the beginning, there was the Hawaii Chair.

Self-Portrait as Ramesses

2008-02-28T21:58:00.002-05:00

blind contour with entire pilot g-2

photo taken with my broke-ass sanyo

Self-Portrait with First Love

2008-02-27T19:54:00.001-05:00

looking in bent mirrors to perceive self-reflection and denial
sry a tad cut off

7TH LIBATION—EATING RAW WORDS—25 February 2008

2008-02-25T15:30:00.001-05:00

She in sparagmos tears alphabets into applause

& yells ololygations of Celine Dion.

In time she castrates Bugs Bunny with her fingernails

& without any notion of emery boards or Sally Hansen polish

scrapes the surface of uncooked meaning.

Then according to tradition of speaking in tongues

& the laws of Babel’s food pyramid

she wonders whether bouphonia is just a word

that describes her vocabulary

& the vocal cords of cows.

She knows the raw-eater by name-tag

& calls Dionysus appropriately Hamburgler

though stolen thysia amounts to nothing but ash

& fading pencil in the altar’s margin.

She in proto-Promethean terms spells sacrifice

with fat and fur

& though blood libations pour very slowly

the chthonic gods drink respect like rubbing alcohol.

Finally, she realizes that the chorus must only sing

in manifestos of Homer, Hesiod, and Hanson

& she will feast.

Persepolis

2008-02-22T14:19:00.000-05:00

The movie was awesome.

No More MECHATHOTH

2008-02-19T00:56:00.004-05:00

Looking at my old blog depresses me and embarasses me. I have a strange urge to print it all out. To make the memories of the past 3 years tangible, real, so I could feel them, turn them, skip some, tear others. That is now done, and there is only The Orchid Club. In that way I'm my own worst enemy.

I hate competition, but I love to win.

Saw the Sex Workers' Art Show on the Lord's Day, which gave me a lot of good laughs.

Read Paul Auster's Travels in the Scriptorium. Good.

The Cost of Work

2008-02-17T15:23:00.002-05:00

Went to the mall yesterday and bought The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake for $24.95 + tax. If your work is your whole life and all your work costs so little, what does that say about your life? I'd charge a little more if I were him.

What's really interesting is that when it comes down to it, literature has no "original" that can fetch a heavy price like an original work of art. Sure there are sometimes manuscripts and first editions and the like, but writing is an art that's centered around the nature of reproduction.

Blake, in many ways, got around this centrality by making relief etchings and printing his illustrations and words side by side.

Meanwhile I bought two pairs of jeans for $60.00.

It takes a while to adjust your eyes to the dark.

John D. Rockefeller

2008-02-16T01:34:00.005-05:00

William Blake goes to Serial Killers

2008-02-16T01:17:00.004-05:00

I ripped off William Blake:

And made some creepy obsessive portraits of my own:

John Wayne Gacy
Angel of Mercy
Ed Gein
Jack the Ripper
Ted Bundy
Aileen Wuornos

South Philly (for Rose)

2008-02-11T20:01:00.004-05:00

Iron lungs breathe

exhalations of

nuts and bolts.

An H wheezes, dying,

fizzes out to graphite.

Why can’t my alveoli

burst like suds?

Second-hand battery acid melts

wet tobacco

and my old Italian neighbor,

with canola cracked fault lines,

peroxidized Midas hair,

and lips like teeth,

coughs the resounding phlegm

of dark matter.

I suck the verse of mufflers,

a roach’s fart,

unaware of the other end.

Why can’t alloyed breastplates

seal my lungs from

their foggy voice?

Wait, the hooting owl sings ash,

and I do one last line.

Beep

2008-02-03T21:25:00.002-05:00

Nurse pecking

brain away,

I crown tickling

TV lashes.

Computer beep

rescue my baby

song.

I beep sweat,

closed eyelid

bathing lashes.

Sweat beep tickling,

sweat beep pecking.

Lashes rescue

my TV,

my baby,

my nurse.

I, away,

bathing,

recall.

1989-06-29T00:00:00.025-04:00

PERSONNEL

THE FANTAST

He is the Original Inspiritor, the founder and leader of The Orchid Club. Brice Peterson grew up in suburban South Jersey and was reared in Catholic school until he moved to Providence, RI to attend Brown University in 2007 and concentrate in English Literature, with a focus in poetry, and Visual Art. There he got involved in Brown Student and Community Radio, where he now serves as General Manager. "Hey, I'm Fred the Cancerian from New Jersey. I like collecting records and exploring the cave of the unknown."

THE STORYTELLER

One summer, she met a red shirted boy in France who told her of a secret cult-The Orchid Club. Now, after swearing in, she is excited to start posting on the blog. Bridget Crowe was raised by the sea. She grew up exploring the redwoods, swimming in the inkwells, and eating honey vanilla lavender ice cream, until her interest in the fine arts brought her to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL. "Hello-would you like some tea? I like old film cameras and brand new Micron pens. And traveling. I love to travel."

1989-06-29T00:00:00.018-04:00

PROJECTS

REDESIGNING THE HUNTER

1989-06-29T00:00:00.017-04:00

STEPHANIE

1989-06-29T00:00:00.016-04:00

FAN MAIL

1989-06-29T00:00:00.015-04:00

Lizzy Mercier Descloux

VIVID

1989-06-29T00:00:00.014-04:00

Vivid is art that isn't.

SIMULTANEOUS SONGS

1989-06-29T00:00:00.013-04:00

CHAPBOOKS

1989-06-29T00:00:00.011-04:00

Zoology
Stephanie
Gluttony

THE UNE PAPERS

1989-06-29T00:00:00.010-04:00

The Elosanvia
The Smiley Chronicles
Marble Comics
The Encyclopedia of Une
The Annals of Une
Other Works