B Scene Zine Volume 2 Issue 1

BSceneZine

The EV at the Movies

Roll 'Em

You've probably seen renowned EV photographer David Godlis's photo of Madonna at Gem Spa during filming of Desperately Seeking Susan. And movie trucks and equipment are pretty common around here, as are underground and indy film makers. Recently, the neighborhood starred in several great flicks – Meet Me in the Bathroom and Make Me Famous -- so we thought it was a good time to highlight just a few of our EV favorites along with the two new ones. Please don't hesitiate to send us your favs. Lower left is a Godlis shot of the old St. Marks Theater and below is the grand Loews Theater that was once on The B at 5th Street. We've also got our usual complement of street artists – Clown Soldier, LeCrue Eyebrows, Sinclair The Vandal – plus neighborhood artists Tom Manco and Laura Texter, photographer Lorraine Forte, rockers SoulCake and Thayer (the new coffee shop/ printer).

Photos by David Godlis

Clown Soldier

Doug Groupp has been working as a street artist in New York City for the past 12 years. In 2009, he adopted the name Clown Soldier and pasted the first wheat paste of his image of a clown in a revolutionary war-era soldier's uniform, playing on the incongruity of the two identities.

The Clown Soldier image also refers to the absurd and playful nature of creating art, "clowning around" with color, line, image and form. The fun and excitement of working in public spaces and creating chance encounters for the viewer, not only with his images but with the spaces themselves, has inspired Groupp to focus on street art over studio work. Follow him on Insta @clown soldier2021

Photos by Daryl-Ann Saunders

Sinclair the Vandal

New York native Sinclair The Vandal is a self-taught artist, whose technique, style, and materials translate his experience in the graffiti culture from the ’80s and ’90s onto canvas. Although not academically trained, he has always utilized painting as an outlet. Given the intuitive nature and control of choice media combined with experimentation, his work achieves the complexity that blurs the lines between “painting” and urban “street art.”

He is an award-winning artist that has been featured in prominent galleries on the east coast. His works have been included in Scope NYC, Moniker NYC, and Palm Beach.

As he continues to refine his style, his creative energy and expression continue to be a vital part of his personality, bridging the viewer and his paintings. Follow him @sinclairthevandal on Insta.

Photo courtesy Sinclair the Vandal

Photo by Daryl-Ann Saunders

LeCrue Eyebrows

LeCrue Eyebrows just finished his first solo show, “LeCrue: Primal Form,” at Van Der Plas Gallery, 156 Orchard Street. His playful two-dimensional stories have become an unmistakable feature of NYC’s streets.

Although there is something seemingly methodical about his work, his creative process starts spontaneously and uses free-form instinctual techniques. This lack of premeditation gives his work a deeply personal originality in exploring thoughtful visceral concepts. He channels stimuli, both consciously and subconsciously absorbed, into strikingly simple yet remarkably nuanced stories on canvas. His figures and objects are recognizable in their hieroglyphic-esque design, but remain mysterious in their connotations. Follow @art by eyebrows on Instagram.

Photos by Daryl-Ann Saunders

I FORGOT TO LAUGH

It was so funny I was scared nervously I patted down my pockets looking for a pen knife and car keys without warranty without worry I angle my ear towards memory like a cat that senses ghosts an electric cricket in my apartment is sitting on my car keys

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year is on the phone are you here so strange to be addressed in a prisoner’s pajamas I have been selected to receive a last rite I’ll eat a chatty crow on homemade sourdough I’m no authority, like the news

When the house shakes rattling dusty moths out of the cupboard our shoes fall out the door and roll into the river the blankets fall off the mirrors and we consider ourselves survivors of the years

Time Magazine’s person is you, is looking for you behind a wall of glass bricks gig workers with slingshots trace us like chalk on the sidewalk dosing on round food sleeping on something so good, so regrettably good we are all splitting sticks dowsing for mercury at midnight the ringing moon hangs electrically over a foggy corner of the earth in a park I used to run laps in packs no I lap myself looking back over my shoulder at a runner fading into the distant haze like arsenic into a teacup

Now you’re leafing to the last page of my diary and it’s you it’s the mirror of you

Thayer

Matt Lally is the proprietor and editor of a new coffee shop/literary hangout and a magazine, respectively. Both are called Thayer, for no reason other than that's his sister's middle name. The place is located at 99 Ave. B, the site of the old Manitoba's dive bar. In addition to serving up coffee, Lally is also into publishing, which includes the quarterly Thayer, a collection of short fiction, poetry and photography. The poem at the left is taken from the first issue, which, by the way, is for sale at the shop. You can find out more and submit your content for consideration at the web site thayer.press or reach out through Insta @thayernyc.

Joshua Schneider

Laura Texter

‘New Lines’ is a collection created by Vogue-featured costume designer, Laura Texter. Laura first came up with the idea for ‘New Lines’ while walking past a fence in East River Park. She wanted to create an everlasting image of a beloved place that would soon be destroyed. That’s when she created the first fence dress!

She then scouted other local fences, gates, and structures to use to create these unique garments. She added tshirts, jeans, and leggings to the line. Her pieces are created on site and each piece includes a tag with a location description. Laura’s background includes working as a costume designer on many productions as well as running her own Halloween business. She also designs accessories for mass production, but her true passion is art. She started East Village Drink N Draw which is held at several local bars. The New Lines collection is available at 3rd and B'zaar or by contacting Laura directly at @NewLinesNY.

Photos courtesy Laura Texter

Meet Me in the Bathroom:

Back in the before times, before COVID, before Trump, even before 9/11, back around the turn of the century, the East Village’s second musical big bang graced us with the dulcet sounds of The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, TV on the Radio and more. And fortunately, author/journalist Lizzy Goodman was there to document it in her brilliant 2017 oral history of the time Meet Me in the Bathroom.

Moderator Jia Tolentino interviews Lizzy Goodman and Dylan Southern after one of the opening shows at IFC.

Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

The Ev's Second Big Bang

Now there’s a documentary, thanks to directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, who lovingly cobbled together archival footage, audio interviews, and never-before-seen photos and video into a 105-minute jaunt through an era of explosive musical creativity that brought modern rock back to its roots in the EV. Unassuming venues like Mercury Lounge, Brownies and Sidewalk became the local rock 'n' roll petri dishes.

The picture opened in November, with a showing at Webster Hall that featured a performance by the Moldy Peaches, who are featured in the film’s opening minutes. That was followed by premieres at IFC and in LA.

Goodman and Southern spoke to audiences at IFC in sessions that revealed their obvious passion for the period and for the riotous music it spawned. “It’s sort of a portal to this other time,” Goodman said of both the book and the documentary. Plus, as Pitchfork said, “the music, pretty uniformly, rips.” “Our hope was to make a film that acts as a time capsule,” added Southern. “We wanted to create a vivid distillation of a music scene, a time and a place, and in doing so explore something universal about youth and creativity," he said.

The Strokes

James Murphy of LCD Sound System. Interpol

Make Me Famous

Edward Brezinski was part of a fertile 1980’s EV art scene that spawned greats like Keith Haring, Richard Hambleton and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Sadly, he never achieved anywhere near the success of his contemporaries. But it wasn’t for lack of trying. Make Me Famous examines Brezinski's colorful artistic career in the EV and LES and uncovers why such a well-connected yet peculiar painter never made it despite his tireless efforts. It also focuses on his legacy and mysterious disappearance.

Photo by Allen Frame

Photo by Andreas Sterling

Enigmatic EV Artist Edward Brezinski's bid for Fame in the 1980s Downtown Art Scene

Directed by Brian Vincent and produced by Heather Spore, Make Me Famous is a dishy insider's look at the art world's attitude toward success and failure, fame and fortune, notoriety and erasure.

by Joseph Szkodzinski

by Jonathan Postal

The movie relies on the recollections and work of more than 150 artists, photographers and gallery owners, who share insider gossip and drop more than a few names in fashioning a snapshot of an unknown artist while at the same time capturing the spirit of an iconic era in Lower Manhattan.

Photo by Brian Gary Azon

Photo

Photo

Painting by Edward Brezinski

Desperately Seeking Susan

New Jersey housewife Roberta Glass (Rosanna Arquette) spices up her boring life by reading personal ads, especially a series of them being placed by a mysterious denizen of the EV named Susan (Madonna). When one of Susan's ads proposes a rendezvous with her suitor (Robert Joy) at Battery Park, Roberta secretly tags along. But when her voyeuristic jape ends in permanent memory loss and a new jacket, Roberta begins to gather a lot of unwanted attention from some unsavory characters.

WITH: Rosanna Arquette, Madonna, Aidan Quinn

DIRECTOR: Susan Seidelman

WRITER: Leora Barish

What About Me

What About Me was written, produced, and directed by Rachel Amodeo. She plays the lead role of "Lisa," who ends up homeless and drifting in the EV. The film was described by The New Yorker as "a hidden masterwork that brings grace and cosmic humor to the grimy streets of the EV in the 1980s."

WITH: Rachel Amodeo, Richard Edson, Richard Hell, Nick Zedd, Judy Carne, Gregory Corso, Jerry Nolan Dee Dee Ramone, Rockets Redglare, Johnny Thunders

MUSIC: Johnny Thunders, Bob Quine PHOTOGRAPHY: Mark Brady, M. Henry Jones

Downtown 81

Downtown 81 is a feature film starring the legendary American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Basquiat was a 19 year old painter, graffiti artist, poet and musician when he played the lead in this film, which vividly depicts the explosive downtown New York art and music scene of 198081.

WITH: Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Lurie, Richard Weigand

DIRECTOR: Edo Bersaglio

WRITER: Glenn O'Brien

Tom Manco

You've no doubt encountered the work of EV artist Tom Manco, whose giant cardboard creations often find their way into TSP. Now, however, Manco, who does commissioned murals and high end faux finishes on residential walls, is turning his talents to creating smaller cardboard sculptures of neighborhood buildings. He's currently creating a series of works to accompany the 2023 calendar that features sketches of neighborhood buildinings by artist Dephine Le Goff. A showing is planned for December at Revisions Lounge, 219 Ave. B. Tom is accepting commissions for scultures and painting projects. Reach him via Instagram at @mancostudios.

Soulcake

Joff Wilson, Laura Sativa and Sara Jane Fendley are SoulCake, one of the nabe's favorite bands with its distinctly downtown mix of rock, indie, folk and pop. Formed in 2018, SoulCake's members have some serious EV bona fides. Wilson has deep roots in the nabe as founder of The Bowery Boys, Irthlings, and Fugitives. He worked with poet-author-singer Jim Carroll and iconic counterculture raconteur

David Peel. Among the band’s influences: downtown staples The Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, The Ramones and Talking Heads. Follow them on Insta @soulcakenyc.

Photo by Bob Krasner

Photo courtesy Soul Cake

Felted: An Engaging New Book From EV Art Photographer Lorraine Forte

Why felted? "I reveled in this as a name. The first time I saw the word it came with the meaning ‘cobbled together.'’ I wanted to thread an accumulation of photos, writing, and thoughts that were pinging together in my head. A surge of emotional residue was also being stirred up, so I liked that the word felt was in there somewhere. Factual information about the physics of our universe, writing, and photography make up the content a little like shuffling three decks of cards together. I’m hoping to create an environment that invites people to think about their own stories and what is happening to our world." Follow @lorraineforte on Instagram.

Photos by Lorraine Forte