I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: FANTASTIC NEGRITO-Tiny Desk Concert #425 (March 9, 2015).

Fantastic Negrito won the Tiny Desk Concert.  And now he gets a chance to play behind the desk for real.

He plays three songs (and looks amazingly dapper).  “Lost in a Crowd” is the song that won, and it sounds even better here–that live vibe really makes it shine.  I love that the drummer plays on a box, just like in the video.

He introduces this song by talking about the coma he was in (his life story is fascinating) and how everything was topsy turvy.  “Night Has Turned To Day” has a real soulful quality, with Negrito hitting some real James Brown wails.  I also like the way he gets the band to do “two times.”

“An Honest Man” is another great song with a fantastic blue chorus.  I also enjoyed the lyric: “I’m in love agin this time it’s not with my hand.”

The band sounds great–acoustic guitar, upright bass and keyboards, and yes, the drummer does get to move to the kit for the last two songs.

While I’m sure there were lots of other great bands deserving to win a Tiny Desk show, I think they made a good choice with Negrito.  he plays a style of music I wouldn’t normally listen to, and he does a great job with it.  I hope he gets a record out.

[READ: April 7, 2015] Five Dials Number 35

Five Dials Number 35 differs in many, many, many ways from the other issues.

First, it is almost entirely art.  Second it is devoted entirely to one artist.  In light of this, many of the pictures are full page sideways which means that the printing is different (this one is really best looked at online).

On page 54, there is an essay about the making of From Here to Here. 

JOEL SMITH: Richard McGuire Make as Book.
I read this after looking all the pictures, but I’m keeping my initial impressions below.  Smith talks about the history of McGuire’s art.  In 1989, Raw published McGuries’s “Here” (which is either excerpted or published in its entirety in this issue).  It is the “professional” comic that I talk about below.  Smith describes it as a constant conversation with the past and the future.   In 2009, McGuire began to work on  book length version of Here.  Switching from black and white to color and using all of the pieces that are listed below.

The action is set mostly in his childhood home in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.  He researched recent and ancient history.  The unmoving point of view is what allows him to travel all over the place.  Originally he was going to split the comic in half with one half going forward and the other going back, but computer technology allowed him to break up the frames in what ever way  he wanted   So events that occurred (or will occur) are a fire (1996) a burglary (1997) a partial collapse (2015) and a flood (2111).  In a real scene from his youth, archaeologists asked if they could dig in the yard for Indian artists (his mother said no).  I really liked the cartoon without this information and I like it a lot more with it.  I am genuinely looking forward to his book form of Here. (which I see came out in December, but was out at my library).

Initial thoughts on the issue:

There are drawings in the beginning (of Native Americans frolicking).  Then collages (with parts that were drawn in from the collages).  There’s sweet photos of childhood and family (and also a wolf carrying away an animal’s leg).

There’s a page from an old book about animal life spans.  And a series of Polaroids from what could be my grandparents in the 50s.  And what appears to be a photo from the 80s.

There are some landscapes and watercolor portraits and then a series of cut out words–a poem, perhaps?  And then a whole page of cut out curses, in a very nice font. (with I assume their year of common usage?)

There’s a lot more watercolors, a very cool one of an elk.

There’s also ample notes about how he is going to make the book, with comments on one pages about all the preceding pages (although nothing too descriptive).  There’s also a page of Indian lexicon with translations.

By page 48, we get to a more formal looking comic strip [the original of “Here”].  Of what I am assuming to be the happenings in this house throughout history jumping back and forth from 1902 (when it was built) until 2030 when it was knocked down.  There was so much going on in the house–the birth of a baby, watching the moon landing, dances, spills, a cat a a dog (and even a peak back to when a dinosaur walked there).  It’s very cool.

The final four pages are photos from the installation of McGuire’s artwork in The Morgan Library & Museum in New York.

The final pages notes: From Here to Here: Richard McGuire Makes a Book is a collaboration between The Morgan Library & Museum and The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

I enjoyed this issue a lot.  Interestingly, a recent issue of Pitchfork magazine also mentions this book and it make me want to read it even more!