Bill Frisell Meets Buster Keaton - All Songs Considered Blog : NPRBill Frisell Meets Buster Keaton
by Bob Boilen
Back in the early '90s, guitarist Bill Frisell scored and performed original music to six Buster Keaton films. The music is brilliant, and I'd seen the Buster Keaton movies, but until now, I'd never seen and heard the two together.
On Sept. 1, those six Buster Keaton films -- including Go West, One Week and High Sign -- will be released with accompaniment by Frisell, drummer Joey Baron and bassist Kermit Driscoll. Here are a few samples. My only regret is that Keaton never saw this; no doubt, he would have loved it.
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August 9, 2009
Bill Frisell Meets Buster Keaton - All Songs Considered Blog : NPR
Exclusive First Listen: Danger Mouse And Sparklehorse Team Up With David Lynch : NPR
Exclusive First Listen: Danger Mouse And Sparklehorse Team Up With David Lynch : NPRExclusive First Listen: Danger Mouse And Sparklehorse Team Up With David Lynch
Hear The Year's Most Mysterious Album In Its Entirety, Before Its Official Release
From left: David Lynch, Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse.
From left: David Lynch, Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse.
More First Listens
Recent Concerts From NPR Music
June 14, 2009 - When the first cryptic bits of news about Dark Night of the Soul began trickling in earlier this year, it all sounded too good to be true. Though the whole project was shrouded in mystery, it appeared that Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, two of the most inspired artists making music today, were collaborating on a new album. That alone was enough to get our geek gears spinning with excitement. But there was an unusual twist that few of us at NPR Music could make sense of: Director David Lynch was somehow involved.
It all started back in March, at the South by Southwest music festival and conference. A number of us on the NPR Music team had noticed strange posters around downtown Austin, Texas, that read "Dark Night of the Soul." They looked like movie posters and had David Lynch's name on them, alongside names of some of our favorite artists, like Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse, Vic Chesnutt, Jason Lytle and more. We wondered if it was some sort of musical film.
Soon after our Austin trip, NPR Music received copies of the mysterious posters in the mail. No return address. Someone was messing with us. I tried to find out more, but had zero success. Then, weeks later, I finally got a note from a publicist with all the details we'd been waiting for.
It turns out Dark Night Of The Soul is an album and the songs were written by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse (Mark Linkous), though the myriad singers featured on each track also had a big hand in composing and producing the work. The album was initially going to be packaged with a book of photos taken by David Lynch. But now there's word that the music may never be officially released at all.
An unnamed spokesperson for Danger Mouse says that "due to an ongoing dispute with EMI" the book of photographs will "now come with a blank, recordable CD-R. All copies will be clearly labeled: 'For legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.'" While offering no specifics, EMI has acknowledged the legal dispute with Danger Mouse and released a statement saying, "Danger Mouse is a brilliant, talented artist for whom we have enormous respect. We continue to make every effort to resolve this situation and we are talking to Brian Burton (Danger Mouse) directly. Meanwhile, we need to reserve our rights."
You can order the book, sans music, from the official Dark Night Of The Soul Web site. In the meantime, you can hear the entire album here on NPR Music as an Exclusive First Listen.
I've listened to the record all the way through at least a dozen times, and can confirm that Dark Night of the Soul delivers in every way you'd hope for. It's beautiful but haunting, surreal and dark, but sometimes comical and affecting, with ear-popping, multilayered production work. It just gets more mesmerizing with every listen.
In addition to Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse (Mark Linkous), other artists appearing on Dark Night of the Soul include James Mercer of The Shins, The Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Frank Black of the Pixies, Iggy Pop, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Suzanne Vega, Vic Chesnutt, David Lynch, and Scott Spillane of Neutral Milk Hotel and The Gerbils.
William Christenberry audio:lens culture photo book review
William Christenberry
photography, painting, sculpture, and audio commentary by the artist
“It is the genius of William Christenberry to stir up intensely evocative emotions and meanings from common, even humble, pieces of the world.”
— Howard N. Fox, curator of modern and contemporary art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
If you call the current comprehensive exhibition of William Christenberry's work a "retrospective," he will politely correct you with his charming Southern drawl: "It's not a retrospective, because I'm not dead yet."
Nevertheless, the show at the Smithsonian, and the accompanying book by Aperture, show the artist and his evolutions and variations and recurrent themes in near encyclopedic form. We discover his strong reliance on photography dating from his first photographs from 1961 (used primarliy as source material for his painting and sculpture), through his instant leap from a brownie camera to an 8 x 10 view camera (at the insistence of his friend Lee Friedlander) in the mid 1970s.
His professional interests have remained intensely personal throughout his career. He values vernacular architecture and signs from the southern United States. And he continues to document these kinds of subjects year after year, to show the deterioration and changes brought about by time and nature and human intervention.
The book itself is beautifully designed and printed. The sequencing of material allows you the shock of recognition at the passing of 20-plus years of time, year by year, of some of the same subject matter. And we are able to experience how a talented painter and sculptor like Christenberry can use these captured fleeting moments of time to create paintings, sculptures and collages.Christenberry spoke to an audience of photography enthusiasts on December 1, 2006 at a presentation for San Francisco's PhotoAlliance and Aperture West. Here you can listen to some choice bits from that presentation:
William Christenberry audio: About bringing photography into his practice as a painter and sculptor: and personal anecdotes about some of his iconic images: Green Warehouse, BBQ Inn, Red Building in Forest, Coca-Cola Sign, Door with Christmas Lights, plus comments about current work of dreamlike sculptures of imaginary Southern Monuments.
(17 minutes, 30 seconds)— Jim Casper
| William Christenberry
photography, painting, sculpture, and audio commentary by the artist book review and audio commentary   William Christenberry |
Keith Moon Dallas, TX 1971 | Tom Wright - if jane aldridge thinks i'm a weirdo, she's glad she wasn't in dallas, tx in 71
Keith Moon Dallas, TX 1971 | Tom Wright
Keith Moon Dallas, TX 1971Sizes: 11x14 16x20 20x24 30X40 Color: Black and White Type: Archival Digital Print Edition of: Limited Edition (11x14 Open Edition) Signed
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