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iPHONE PHOTO ESSAY of MAINE TRIP JULY 26th-30th 2017

While I’ve really enjoyed using Instagram to share inspirational images & some fun moments, this platform has been neglected.

So having just spent five picture-perfect magical days up in Maine with close friends Tommy, Natalie & Stella Emery, these images needed fuller vista, wider screen technicolor presentation!

Our Max (who chose to stay home) & their Rowan (at camp) were very missed.

Driveway to the beautiful barn -

Lunch at Mothers Kitchen -“mothers little helper” -

Few of the trees downed from previous years storm-

Wild flowers-

Our walk down to Hulls Cove (Hells Cove)

I'll have a Walter on the rocks please.

Fisheye action.

Lunch at the Asticou Hotel (Overlook Hotel)

Magic garden (with no secret door)

Pretty strict rules for the magic garden.

Magic Toadstool.

Setting sun over the bay.

Sunset at the Bar Harbor Club

Fire Starter- (photo credit Tommy Emery)

RON GALLO : BABY'S ALL RIGHT : 2/23/17

It's always fun to be the first amongst friends to discover a band & watch them gain devoted fans. Joe Bisirri (bass), Dylan Sevey (drums) & Ron Gallo (vicious guitar) returned to NYC, and went from playing a half empty Mercury Lounge last July to selling out Baby's All Right last night.

Ron’s confidence & stage presence has also notably developed. He’s a pretty imposing figure, & when singing songs penned from an angry or sad point of view such as “All the Punks are Domesticated” he can bring the full house of chatter to total silence with his intensity.

I’ve never really been drawn to Rock N’ Roll that has a “message”. Music in general has always simply been a way to escape the harsh realties of life. However Ron’s music is not only danceable and exciting due to the bands primal energy, he’s able to be both, a thought provoking wordsmith/missionary & bad ass rocker.

Ron’s album just dropped, so catch him on tour to buy the vinyl or cassette or simply download it HERE

iPhone clip of "Young Lady You're Scaring Me"

RAYMOND PETTIBON : NEW MUSEUM

A mind boggling 40 years of work, displayed on 4 floors.

A MUST SEE IF YOU LOVE ART.

Show is on till April 9th. Full Info HERE

Just a few of the works that I liked below.

MARILYN MINTER "PRETTY/DIRTY" at the BROOKLYN MUSEUM

The title of the show could not be more appropriate.

While I've only become a fan of her work in the last 10 years, this retrospective shows her output over some 40 years. Interestingly, the work I was most drawn to today were the early photorealist paintings ones from the 70's & her most recent images. The 70's ones show incredible skill, & I had no idea that she was making works such as the couple of floor studies I show below.

My normal posts of artworks show them in frames with a little wall showing too for scale, but these are all unframed, & I feel some work better here cropped to the edge.

The 2 rooms with videos are truly mesmerizing, Pretty & Dirty. Its on till April & well worth a visit to the museum!

My shadow in her floor projection

BLURRINGRadio # 69 "BEST of 2016"

As with the last five years of "Best of" shows, the name is simply a hook to get you in. Music, like all forms of art, is purely subjective and I feel like terms such as "best" or "worst" should not be applied to it. This is simply some of the music that has inspired me over the last 12 months.

In typical Blurring Radio fashion, it is an eclectic contemporary feast of indie and electronic things, some in the mainstream, and some more obscure, that I hope you will enjoy the discovery of

TRACK LIST BELOW

TO PLAY CLICK HERE.

Radiohead - Burn The Witch
Allah-Las - Could Be You
Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve - Diagram Girl
Bonobo (feat. Rhye) - Break Apart
David Bowie - Lazarus
Wall of Death - How Many Kinds
Shearwater - Filaments
Underworld - Ova Nova
Hælos - Earth Not Above
Kaytranada (feat. BADBADNOTGOOD) - Weight Off
Warpaint - New Song
Pional - The Way That You Like feat. Empress Of
Holy Fuck - Xed Eyes
Veils - Swimming with Crocodiles
James Blake - Radio Silence
Burial - Young Death
Ron Gallo - Young Lady, You're Scaring Me
Farao - Hunter
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Mr. Beat
Superhumanoids - Death Rattle
The Weekend (feat. Daft Punk) - I Feel It Coming
The XX- On Hold
GILA - Don't Chirp
Yeasayer - I Am Chemistry
Black Mountain - Constellations
Teleman - Tangerine
The Range - Regular
The National - Morning Dew
Massive Attack & Azekel - Ritual Spirit
Sampha - Blood On Me
Radiohead - The Numbers

FLYER DESIGNS INCLUDED IN NIGHTLIFE HISTORY BOOK.

Being a lover & collector of ephemera, it warms my heart to know there are others out there with the same obsessive gene. Old friend & New York DJ legend Stretch Armstrong, with partner Evan Auerbach have produced a book focusing on club flyers, "No Sleep : NYC Nightlife Flyers 1988-1999". When I learned about the the project, of course I was excited to see it, & that was before I learned that I was to be featured in it. Stretch came to my office & scanned flyers from my scrap books. Thrilled to be included in a publication along side such visual heroes of my own, such as HAZE & Haring!

ART BASEL / MIAMI ART WEEK : 2016 HIGH-SPEED ROUND-UP

In previous years I’ve booked my flights & hotel weeks in advance of Art Basel and whats now called Miami Art Week.

However without Gary Pini, who I normally share a room with & who’d decided he wasn’t going, I couldn't decide if I wanted go or not.

Gary suggested I wait till the last minute & see if flights & hotels come down in price. They did!

So Tues I booked for Wed 8.00am, for just 2 nights. Borrowing another leaf out of Gary’s life-plan-book, I build a tight list & schedule of fairs & events I wanted to see.

Night one I met up with & hung out with David Hershkovits & Brian Antoni, all of us were feeling the absence of Gary.

We all agreed that him not coming was the official notice that "the whole thing is over”.

As with last year one of the strongest exhibitions was the mega-show staged by Jeffrey Deitch & Larry Gagosian, this year curated by Diana Widmaier-Picasso, called “Desire”.

The show is a sexy thrill-ride between iconic works that I’ve only ever read about in books, or seen on screens, combined with a ton of great pieces, some by artists I’ve never heard of. They range in "heat" from simply pretty to straight-up porn.

Allen Jones. Having missed the giant retrospective of Jones in London & New York, super happy to see these in person.

Standing in front of The Brooke Shields photo that helped propel Richard Prince into the world of controversy, Brian introduced me to an old friend of his, Sandra, who told us the incredible story of her time in 1983 when she & a partner ran a gallery in the Lower East Side & showed two unknown, & un-sellable artists, Richard Prince & Jeff Koons. The very same Brooke Shields work below, (which in 2014 sold for close to $4,000,000) sat in the gallery window back then for months with no interest.

Richard Prince

Marilyn Minter

Hajime Sorayama. As a teen, I grew up horny & inspired by his Sexy Robots.

Andy Warhol

From there we grabbed some food & while waiting on our order, David & I jumped across the street to check out Primary Projects (PRIMARY) beautiful new space.

I really dug Kelly Breez’s B&W pieces. A little reminiscent of classic Raymond Pettibon, or even R. Crumb but with a much younger stance.

Kelly Breez

From dinner to the Rubell Collection family party, where I found two new names, at least to me, who’s works struck a chord.

Anee Imhof. These were a massive ten foot tall!

Cy Gavin. The figure in the second one is bigger than most people’s rooms!

The next day I braced myself for the miles & miles of galleries that make up the maze of Art Basel itself.

This year I tried to visit the few on my hit list before the art-burn-out-stare set in.

First on my list was Ratio3, who were showing a survey of one of my all time favorite painters, the late Margaret Kilgallen.

Margaret Kilgallen.

Then these new KAWS works caught my eye.

I’m the only one of my fellow old skool KAWS heads/collectors that likes these. Can't explain exactly why, but I do.

Titus Kaphar

Just as I was beginning to fade, my buddy Ronny asked if I was a fan of Sadie Benning. The name meant nothing to me & I said I don’t know her. We walked over to the gallery that had this yellow one & I fell in love.

My final day I was hoping to hit both NADA & Untitled fairs but I ran late, due to having fun hanging-out with the Harpers Books crew in their suite. NADA was underwhelming to me so I went to have lunch with Paul Weston & his friends, & then I didn’t have time for Untitled, so mad dash to the airport. Guess there's always next year.

BLURRINGRadio # 68 "VERSIONS & REMIXES "

A mixtape that spotlights the ability of producers and musicians to remix, or create a version from an original, that transforms a piece of music or a song into something that is completely different, and sometimes even better than it once was. For humor, I threw in a couple of early and very cheeky mash-ups also.

TRACK LIST BELOW

TO PLAY CLICK HERE.

Tame Impala - Let it Happen (Soulwax Remix)

Thom Yorke - And It Rained All Night" (Burial Remix)

Nouvelle Vague - Love Will Tear Us Apart”
Radiohead - Little By Little (Caribou Remix)
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle (Shep Pettibone Extended Remix)
Jamie xx - I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times) (Skepta Remix)
Rolling Stones & Shanon Mash-Up - Rolling Shannon
Steel Pulse - Can't Stand Losing You
The Clash - Police and Thieves
Battles - Tonto (Four Tet Remix)
Chromatics - Into the Black
Låpsley - Operator (DJ Koze's Disco Edit)
The XX - Sunset (Jamie xx Edit)
Beyond The Wizards Sleeve - Diagram Girl Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Reanimation
Foals - Late Night (Solomun Remix)
Radiohead - Everything In It's Right Place (Version)
Nouvelle Vague - Teenage Kicks
The Rolling Stones - Imagination
David Bowie - Waiting For The Man
Wooden Ships - Crossing (Andy Weatherall Remix)
The National - Morning Dew
Dsico That No-Talent Hack - Smells like electro
Royksopp & Indeep Mash-Up - Last Night a DJ saved my Eple
Patti Smith - Because the Night

A RARE DAY OF CULTURE: ROTHKO, MCCARTHY & STRETCH

Normally weekends are reserved for time with the family but today the family had their own plans, so I took the opportunity to take in some art & culture! It was also partly an attempt to escape everyones post election mood & the relentless conversations.

I met up in Chelsea with Garrett, a recent transplant from LA, who's energy to absorb NYC's culture is energizing. While heading to Printed Matter to see if they had any inexpensive Tom Sachs zines or stickers we saw big signs for a ROTHKO opening today. I remembered reading something about PACE showing some incredible private collection. As I told Garrett, when I was 14, Rothko opened my mind to abstract art & how color is emotional. The exhibition is stunning. We then hit Printed Matter & I scored a NASA shirt for $20 & a TEN BULLETS sticker for $1.

We then headed down to Hauser & Wirth for Paul McCarthy which is hillarious & amazing!

From they had to rush over to Williamsburg to hear old friend, & NY legend, DJ Stretch Armstrong give a talk on his new book. "No Sleep: NYC Nightlife Flyers 1988-1999" Nice surprise to find out I have no less than 6 pages of my own club flyers in the book! Also nice surprise to see that Eric HAZE was on the speaking panel too. HAZE is majorly important to me visually & was huge contributor to my own tome "Stickers" Coincidently Stretch is confirmed as a writer for Vol 2 of Stickers.

Just a few of the MARK ROTHKO'S at PACE. (iPhone pics should be illegal, they do not do these works justice!)