Category Archives: Photograph

Photos: R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tuker & Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic in the Studio

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Peter Buck, Corin Tucker, Bill Rieflin, Krist Novoselic and Scott McCaughey in the studio. Photo by Lance Bangs.

The other day I posted about the debut performance by super-Earth, the new supergroup formed by Peter Buck and Corin Tucker. Not it turns out that Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic is also in the band.

These two photos are by Lance Bangs. The group is currently recording. No news on song titles or when recordings will be available.

ucker, Buck, Kurt Bloch, Bill Rieflin, Novoselic, and Scott McCaughey in the studio. Photo by Lance Bangs.

[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.]

– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Audio: New Peter Buck, Corin Tucker ‘Supergroup’ Debut 12 Songs at Portland’s Secret Society

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Corin Tucker & Peter Buck at Secret Society in Portland. Photo via The Oregonian.

Last night super-Earth, the new band that finds Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck collaborating, performed in Portland at Secret Society, opening for Buck.

The group played 12 songs that David Greenwald of The Oregonian wrote were “so fresh, Tucker had lyric sheets.”

More from Greenwald’s review:

The occasional look to her music stand didn’t stop Tucker, still one of the best rock singers working, from commanding a room that had filled in by the time super-Earth took the stage. The new material, speedy and loud, was full of power chords, enthusiasm and the occasional signature Buck arpeggio — less punk rock than power-pop but always knife-sharp. It sounded like an album: hopefully it will be.

In addition to Buck and Tucker, super-Earth includes guitarist Scott McCaughey (Minus 5), drummer Bill Rieflin (Swans, Ministry), and guitarist Kurt Bloch (ex-Fastbacks).

The group are currently working on an album, according to the Portland Mercury.

Buck and Tucker have worked together in the past. Tucker sang on both of Buck’s solo albums.

Here are two songs on Peter Buck albums featuring Tucker:

“Drown With Me”:

“Nothing Means Nothing”:

Plus Pearl Jam, Sleater Kinney, Peter Buck and members of his band do “Rockin’ in the Free World” November 29, 2013:

– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Audio: The Incredible Search for Blues Singers ‘Geeshie’ Wiley and ‘Elvie’ Thomas

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Only known photo of L. V. Thomas.

Fantastic article in today’s Sunday New York Times on the search for 1930s blues singers ‘Geeshie Wiley’ and ‘Elvie’ Thomas.

Below the excerpt are the songs the two women recorded in 1930 for Paramount Records.

John Jeremiah Sullivan writes:

IN THE WORLD of early-20th-century African-American music and people obsessed by it, who can appear from one angle like a clique of pale and misanthropic scholar-gatherers and from another like a sizable chunk of the human population, there exist no ghosts more vexing than a couple of women identified on three ultrarare records made in 1930 and ’31 as Elvie Thomas and Geeshie Wiley. There are musicians as obscure as Wiley and Thomas, and musicians as great, but in none does the Venn diagram of greatness and lostness reveal such vast and bewildering co-extent. In the spring of 1930, in a damp and dimly lit studio, in a small Wisconsin village on the western shore of Lake Michigan, the duo recorded a batch of songs that for more than half a century have been numbered among the masterpieces of prewar American music, in particular two, Elvie’s “Motherless Child Blues” and Geeshie’s “Last Kind Words Blues,” twin Alps of their tiny oeuvre, inspiring essays and novels and films and cover versions, a classical arrangement.

Yet despite more than 50 years of researchers’ efforts to learn who the two women were or where they came from, we have remained ignorant of even their legal names.

Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas, “Last Kind Word Blues”:

Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas, “Motherless Child Blues”: (1930)

Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas, “Skinny Leg Blues”:

Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas,” Pick Poor Robin Clean”:

Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas, “Come On Over To My House”:

Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas, “Eagles On A Half”:

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –

Where Five Writers Write: Colson Whitehead, Douglas Coupland, Mona Simpson, Joyce Carol Oates and Roddy Doyle

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Mona Simpson at her ‘desk.’ Photo via the New York TImes. Photo by Magnus Unnar

This photo essay with words provides some insight into what makes for the right enviroment for writing — at least for these five writers: Colson Whitehead, Douglas Coupland, Mona Simpson, Joyce Carol Oates and Roddy Doyle.

Check it out here.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Allen Ginsberg Photos of Bob Dylan, Kerouac, Patti Smith & More Donated to University of Toronto

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Jack Kerouac by Allen Ginsberg.

Nearly all of Allen Ginsberg’s photographs have been donated to the University of Toronto by the Larry & Cookie Rossy Family Foundation, according to the Huffington Post.

The nearly 8000 photographs include images of Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, John Cage, William de Kooning, Paul McCartney, Patti Smith, William Burroughs and Iggy Pop.

Patti Smith by Allen Ginsberg.

The Huffington Post reports:

Comprising a nearly complete archive of Ginsberg’s surviving photographs, the collection, spanning the years 1944 to 1997, includes original snapshots and prints of various sizes. The silver gelatin prints are unique in that they are hand-captioned by Ginsberg. All of these images will be available to scholars, and some will be on display.

Although known primarily as a writer, Ginsberg was an avid photographer. The collection includes images of writers Amiri Baraka (formerly known as LeRoi Jones), Paul Bowles, Doris Lessing, Josef Skvorecky (who was a professor of English at U of T) and Evgeny Yevtushenko. Other Ginsberg subjects were photographer Robert Frank, psychologist R.D. Laing, author and activist Dr. Benjamin Spock and psychologist, and drug guru, Timothy Leary. Ginsberg’s friend and, fellow writer, Burroughs appears in more than 300 photographs. Another frequent subject is Ginsberg’s lifelong partner, Peter Orlovsky.

The Ginsberg prints provide visual insight into New York urban landscape from the 1950s to the 1990s. They also document Ginsberg’s international travels to Canada, France, India, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, the USSR and many other nations.

Linda & Paul by Allen Ginsberg.

For the whole story head to the Huffington Post.

You can see many of Allen Ginsberg’s photographs here.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Burial Steps Out of the Shadows, Posts Photo

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The until now mysterious artist known as Burial has posted what appears to be a photo of himself at the website of Hyperdub, the label that has released all his music, along with a message:

Hi this is will, I just want to say thank you to anyone out there who liked my burial tunes & supported me over the years. its really appreciated. Massive thank you anyone who got my records & all producers, DJs, radio stations, labels, shops, writers & journalists.. anyone who played my tunes, gave them a listen, or helped me out with it, made me want to keep going with it. Also shout out anyone who sent me tunes, messages, anyone I met along the way & a big shout out to anyone who supports or does independent & underground music.

I want to do some new tunes this year to send to my boss Steve and the label because they’ve been going 10 years now and have stuck by me. Hopefully by the end of most years I have done some tunes that are decent enough to release. but Dark Souls 2 is on the horizon soon so I’m not sure if I will have many new tunes for a while because I need to play that game a lot. But I’m going to try to get some new tunes together before it comes out.

Also I want to go and find some old tunes I did that still sound alright and never came out.. It would be nice to finally put some of them out on vinyl one day.

Also I want to tell my Mum my Dad my brothers and my sister that I love them to bits. Big shout out to the UK & everywhere else. Cheers & respect to everyone and anyone…be safe & take care


Will

Burial’s recent music:

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Video: Bob Dylan, Mr. Uncomfortable, Poses for a Photo with Jeff Tweedy, Sings ‘The Weight’

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Take a look at Bob Dylan’s face in the above photo, which appeared today on American Songwriter. Then think about what it would be like if everyone you came in contact with wanted something from you. A photo. An autograph. A response to a question. An acknowledgement.

Something.

They always want some goddamn thing.

So maybe, even if it’s another artist, even if it’s Jeff Tweedy, you wouldn’t be in the greatest mood when the photographer took the photo.

Here’s Tweedy on playing “The Weight” with Dylan:

“We played that song in a different key every night. It was never in the same key. The tour manager would say, ‘It’s in A flat tonight.’ Or we’d already be out onstage, and we’d talk to Tony Garnier, the bass player, and somehow ask him which key and he’d say, ‘A flat.’ And that’s in front of a lot of people. But Dylan never told us. I think he likes putting himself and his band into a corner, to see if they can play their way out.”

“The Weight,” Virginia Beach, VA, on July 24, 2013:

Hoboken, NJ, on July 26, 2013:

Another clip of the same performance:

Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, Irvine, CA, August 3, 2013:

Another clip of the same performance:

Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, Irvine, CA, August 4, 2013:

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Life Magazine Publishes Previously Unseen Little Richard Photos

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Photo by Ralph Morse via Life.

In 1971 Life magazine sent staff photographer Ralph Morse to photograph the wild rock ‘n’ roller, Little Richard. This was, of course, long after Little Richard’s ’50s heyday. He scored 15 Top 10 R&B hits in 1955, ’56 and ’57 starting with “Tutti-Frutti.”

A photo shoot took place and then… nothing.

Today, 42 years later, the photos can be seen at Life’s online site.

They’re pretty cool.

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —

Exhibit to Focus on Wallace Berman’s Beat Zine “Semina”

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The late great assemblage artist/ photographer Wallace Berman, who died on his birthday in 1976 at age 50 in a car accident, will be honored at an exhibit of his Beat zine Semina, which he hand-printed on a table-top in his house.

“All components of all nine issues of Wallace Berman’s art/assemblage/beat zine Semina, alongside related ephemera, posters and mail-art [will be exhibited]. Semina bridges appropriation, fine printing, punk-style DIY and collage/montage, this already in the late 1950s!” reads the press release about the show.

“Semina 1955-1964 Art Is Love Is God,” will run from Sunday, December 8 through Thursday, January 9 at Boo-Hooray in New York.

A reception with John Zorn performing will take place on Sunday December 8, from 3PM-6PM.

RSVP here if you plan to attend the reception.

Here’s more from the press release:

“Michael McClure called it “a scrapbook of the spirit”. Outside of commerce, Semina was sent through the mail to Wallace Berman’s friends like David Meltzer, William S. Burroughs, Alexander Trocchi, Allen Ginsberg, and Cameron. The components of Semina were not only submitted, but appropriated from these friends, alongside personal heroes like W. B. Yeats, Hermann Hesse, and Antonin Artaud.

Hand-printed on a table-top at his house, this free-form zine with its loose-leaf poetry and amazing collages, montages and photography, is also most baffling in its vanguard status: nobody had done anything like this before Berman, not even in the days of dada.

Published between 1955 and 1964 in editions ranging from 150 to 350 copies, this rare publication (original issues regularly sell in the five figures) needs to be seen and cherished by anyone interested in American post-war art.

Michael Duncan points out that “Semina’s overarching theme involved a search for how to transcend the ‘monster’ of postwar meaninglessness.”

The spirit of Semina’s assemblage will feel familiar to anybody who has ever stayed up late at night at a copy shop making a punk zine or flyer. The hypnotic and delicious feel of perusing the poetry and imagery is the closest I’ve gotten to capturing those fleeting moments when one remembers components of a distant dream.

On December 8th, Boo-Hooray is publishing Semina 1955-1964 Art Is Love Is God, a 174 page softbound full-color catalogue reproducing each component of each issue of Semina. The catalogue comes with a booklet of annotations and texts by Johan Kugelberg, Adam Davis, Tosh Berman, Shirley Berman, Philip Aarons and Andrew Roth alongside silkscreened artwork, photo prints, flyers and cards, all printed loose-leaf and contained in a pocket on the back board of the catalogue in the spirit of Wallace Berman’s original publication.

This publication is limited to 300 copies and is only available from Boo-Hooray.”

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —

Watch: Sleater-Kinney Reunite at Pearl Jam Show, Sing “Rockin’ in the Free World”

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The three former members of Sleater-Kinney — Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss — reunited last night to perform “Rockin’ in the Free World” with Pearl Jam at Portland’s Moda Center.

Also participating was Peter Buck, formerly of R.E.M.

YouTube video of the song:

Here are more fan photos:

Sleater-Kinney performing “Rockin’ in the Free World” with Pearl Jam in 2003.

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —