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D ANGELO S INSTINTIVE TRAVELS
Anthony P arker Everyone who works on this project works on it for little or no money. If you like what you see within these pages, please go out and support local business and arts. The money made here should stay here. If you have a choice, support your locally-owned businesses and protect the city of Richmond’s independence from corporate opportunists.
Ian OM ! Shree Ganeshaaya Namaha ! I prostrate myself before you, O Ganeshvara, Your icon is a hallowed charm That assures fulfillment of all desire. With the fanning of your broad ears, You scatter away all obstacles, As though they were weightless as cotton. OM ! Shree Ganeshaaya Namaha !
M arisa Once a meticulous and cautious planner, I’ve been proven wrong -- a hasty, spur-of-the-moment gut decision here and there doesn’t always yield chaos. I’ve made a handful those in the past 15 months: Ending an engagement, leaving Florida to pursue my numerous dreams and hobbies, six months later leaving the initial job I landed here for something more worthwhile and down to earth. And just this week consisted of getting my own place by myself. If someone told me 16 months ago how my life would pan out, I’d have been in wishful disbelief, though in the grand scheme of it all, 16 months is but a blink of an eye. Dreams manifesting into reality require action, and when one dream comes true, you suddenly look at your other dreams more carefully; working harder on some, and suddenly putting others on the backburner. Make it happen, because only you can. Life is this great ongoing process of adjustments, changes and realizations, and cake isn’t there just for decoration. Eat up.
This is the first time I’ve put someone else’s words in this section, but this knowledge is very profound and I feel the need to share it like it was shared with me. Thanks, Rose! “There are seven incarnations (and six correlates) necessary to becoming an Artist: 1. Explorer (Courage) 2. Surveyor (Vision) 3. Miner (Strength) 4. Refiner (Patience) 5. Designer (Intelligence) 6. Maker (Experience) 7. Artist. First you must leave the safety of your home and go into the dangers of the world, whether to an actual territory, or some unexamined aspect of the psyche. This is what is meant by ’Explorer.’ Next, you must have the vision to recognize your destination once you arrive there. Note that a destination may sometimes also be the journey. This is what is meant by ’Surveyor.’ Third, you must be strong enough to dig up facts, follow the veins of history, unearth telling details. This is what is meant by ‘Miner.’ Fourth, you must have the patience to winnow and process your material into something rare. This may take months or even years. And this is what is meant by ‘Refiner.” Fifth, you must use your intellect to conceive of your material as something meaning more than its origins. This is what is meant by ‘Designer.’ Six, you must fashion a work independent of everything that has gone before it, including yourself. That is what is meant by ‘Maker.’ At this stage, the work is acceptable. You will be fortunate to have progressed so far. It (sic) assume you are exceptional. Let us assume you are rare. What then does it mean to reach the final incarnation? Only this: at every stage, from 1 thru 6, you will risk more, see more, gather more, process more, fashion more, consider more, love more, suffer more, imagine more and in the end know why less means more and leave what doesn’t and keep what implies and create what matters. This is what is meant by ‘Artist.’” - Mark Z. Danielewski GARDEN
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AROUND OUR NEIGHBORHOOD
H ave a B ow l B ef o re Class
Ian M. Graham Of good ideas, this one is off of the charts. Out of the Box, a new spot at 823 West Broad (right next to campus), serves up almost 40 kinds of breakfast cereal, all damn day. I heard about the idea for the place from a buddy, and I could barely believe that something so simply wonderful could pop up, and yet yesterday, I had a bowl of Coco Krispies and Reese’s Puffs, while surfing on the free wi-fi, next to a four-foot-tall Tony the Tiger. Out of the Box has just about every cereal you could want, in addition to many types of milk (whole, skim, 2%, chocolate, soy…), and toppings ranging from fresh fruit to candy. They’re open before your 8AM class, and have to-go bowls so you can stop in, and munch on the way to wherever you’re going. If you stay, or roll with it, either way, it’s the best bowl to start your day. 08 GARDEN
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Red D r ag o n Tat to o
Ian M. Graham Founded in 1992, Red Dragon Tattoo has spawned many of the eastern seaboard’s best tattoo artists. Owner Robbie Villalpando opened her first location at 3935 Hull Street after apprenticing at Lizard’s Tattoo from 1987 to 1989, then working at Creative Design until opening up shop. She currently manages the Red Dragon shop at 425 west Broad, opened in 1994. Her current roster of well-studied artists includes Sean Harrington, Jimmy St. John, Nelson Rodriguez, Greg French (G-Fresh), and piercer Lynn Volker. Several artists who got their start at Red Dragon now own their own shops. Red Dragon Tattoo operates on a different level from other tattoo shops. The artists work together, instead of in competition- so when your tattoo is designed, it has had input from several artists, not just the one putting ink on you. The shop also makes group decisions, instead of being commanded by Robbie. Decisions such as new artists to bring on board are put out to the entire staff, with all input weighed. The staff is planning a group vacation- probably to a location where the continent ends- and has been known to throw the occasional cookout. They say that it’s hard to decide on a vacation, though, because unlike so many people in the world today, they truly love what they do. If I was a tattoo artist, I suspect I’d be the same way. To have every person you work with happy to see you is quite a rare thing. The shop is currently doing better than ever before, with more business and repeat customers. It’s not surprising, with a group of artists who pride themselves on going the extra mile, constantly going through multiple drafts to make sure the customer gets exactly what they want. Red Dragon offers a 10% discount to students with a VCU ID.
B r aaaaaains Ian M. Graham Picture it. You’re sifting through CDs at Plan 9 in Carytown on a Saturday afternoon. You glance up at an Evil Dead poster on the wall, look outside to the sidewalk, and see… the exact same thing . The street is flooded with zombies. The undead. They’re walking slowly, lurching, groaning, skin peeling and blood spattered. One of them lumbers in, makes it to the counter, and asks for brains. Not Bad Brains, mind you, but grey matter. Don’t go for your shotgun yet. What’s before your eyes isn’t an outbreak of West African Rabies, and you should have no fear of being consumed- as long as the day is October 21st of this year. That is the date of the annual Zombie Walk, a nationally organized “freak-out-the-locals” style ordeal that takes place in multiple cities. Last year’s Walk gathered around fifty or so of the semi-undead, with costumes including zombie leprechauns, frat boys, rednecks, and shrinersall stumbling. The organizers are hoping for at least double that amount this year, so if you’ve got the time and some spare clothes you don’t mind ruining, join in on the fun. The walk this year will take place first in Carytown, and then at a so-far undisclosed local mall. Details are available at www.zombiewalk.com, which also provided the pictures of last year’s walk.Author’s note- if you see undead hoards filling the streets on any date other than October 21st, call the National Guard, don’t make any loud noises, and aim for the head.
G et D ow n O le T im ey St y le
Zombie Biro contributed to this article.
Frankie Lee There’s a real good chance you don’t know any of the performers, but that doesn’t matter. It’s FREE! The National Folk Festival comes to Richmond October 13 – 15, starting at 6PM that Friday and Noon Saturday and Sunday. Close to 70,000 people attended the festival last year, which raises seven stages across Brown’s Island, the lawn of the New Market Corporation, portions of the Federal Reserve Parking Lot, and Tredegar St; basically from 2nd to 9th Streets and from Byrd Street to the river. The festival will have over 25 performers ranging from western swing, blues, mountain songs, rockabilly, go-go (yes go-go), old-time and many other American styles, as well as Armenian, Chinese, Hawaiian, Jewish, Canadian, the list goes on. Among the music, expect crafts (this year’s theme is ‘Working Arts of Virginia’), merchants, food, and beer. Did I mention the festival was FREE?
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Mike Seal < Ms777666 @ aol.com >
10 GARDEN OF MAYHEM
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Emile Ferran < ferranph @ ferranphotography.com >
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Donnie Green <w w w.donniegreen.com >
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16 G ARDE N OF M AYHE M
Michael Hammer <w w w.mikehammerphotography.com >
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Being
by Parker
Rose Csorba images : David Kennedy
Rose Csorba’s studio is a mad scientist’s laboratory, except her creative madness dramatically outweighs the science. The shelves are crammed with containers of gooey, strange-colored liquids, jars of pastes, containers of resins, paint, pod shells (from trees), pellets found near train tracks, newspaper, melted plastic, banana skin, broken glass, marbles, Styrofoam, and everything in between. She’s even used such things as hippopotamus teeth, camel skin, scorpions, taxidermy eyes, and even giant African millipedes. This vast list of items is used to create the puppets, creatures, and scenarios that Rose spends countless hours bringing to life. Other peoples’ trash undeniably becomes her treasure. Csorba doesn’t believe in wasting materials and has a deep respect for the earth.
Most all of the materials she uses are found objects. “I believe that the state of our earth is in need if some kindness. Mankind’s’ consumption of plastic and other products and the disposal of the lot onto our planet is having a deep, negative effect on our society and world. So why not use these discarded materials to create work that comments on this? ” Having lived near the Masai tribe in Kenya from 1997-2001, Rose learned how to make broken components function together and delved into the tribes’ simple engineering tasks. The Masai also don’t believe in wasting any material, but recycling into new functional or decorative objects. Her work may look like something straight out of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale upon first glance. But dig a little deeper and one can see that Rose creates her own fairy tales with real social comments on society GARDEN
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using symbolism relating to the abuse of our earth and to ourselves. She is attracted to depicting objects in flight, incorporating scenarios of fleeing an overcoming the situation in which her characters are placed. Rose’s recent pieces of the last two years have the theme of flooding with the overlying theme of man’s pollution of the earth and the effect it has on animals, specifically ones that dwell in the ocean. Lately the idea of mass amounts of water has overwhelmed her thoughts. “I have reoccurring nightmares of a great tidal wave and flood. This is streaming through my brains into my hands as I create. No doubt, I can recount each moment of these deluge dreams as I’ve become very familiar with the predictable scenarios.” Csorba illustrates her visions as well. These relate to her sculptural relief work in that they have spatial similarities and the same flowing lines throughout and deal with the dual themes of overindulgence and conservation. Making and performing with her puppets is a whole other level of her artistic thought process. She was first introduced to marionettes (puppets with strings) while she was in college at the Maryland Institute College of Art. “I made a few puppets back then... but the creation of my current marionettes happened several years ago. I suppose with age and the experiences I’ve had with my own body I was getting familiar with how the body works with joints and gravity pulling the weight of the hand down. I was starting to ‘get it.’” So, Rose designed Paris (a marionette with a horse’s head sporting a black hat with a green suit) out of dowel rods and bakeable plastic. She then inserted thin, hammered pieces of lead into the body parts. “The lead is really the trick to their humanlike movements. Their sections of movement and flexibility are also similar to the human body.” She was initially frustrated with the outcome after Paris was completed. “The first time I operated Paris I looked down in horror. His movements were so awkward and jagged. I felt as if I had wasted a lot of time in making him. Then I took him out with me to get a drink and I felt myself relax more and “got it” within the night.” GARDEN
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Six more marionettes have been birthed since then: Slipper, Soldier, Turnip, Koal, Syckle, and Skillet (named after Richmond’s own real life punk rockin’ legend). These wacky characters range from a turnipheaded demoness, a baby doll with a mustache bound to a wheelchair, to a bear-like creature with a top hat. The puppet shows they are used for are more fun (yet slightly demented and quirky) storytelling scenarios based mostly on old movies, particularly Film Noir. Rose treats her stringed creations as her children, taking care of them and repairing them when needed. To step into Rose Csorba’s world one must pulls the veils of everyday reality back and be willing to take a long hard look into the different dimensions of human harshness brought to light by her creative thoughts and actions. www.csorba-gallery.shows.it/
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Burning Man 2006:
Hope and Fear :
words & images by Parker
The Future
Some things in life defy description. You can talk and write about these things all you want, but it just doesn’t do them justice. The weeklong adventure known as Burning Man is one of those things. Trying to effectively paint a picture with words as to what exactly the event is...well, it’s a near impossible feat. To truly understand just what Burning Man is, one must travel there and participate in the experience. At the end of August I descended into the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for a third time to once again do just that. Burning Man is a weeklong experiment in community enveloped in a vast and vibrant celebration of creativity, art, spirit, and life where radical free self-expression is encouraged and nurtured. The event becomes a haven for all walks of life and people of all different shapes, sizes, colors, and beliefs. An open mind is required as you will encounter individuals, artwork, and situations that probably don’t exist in your daily life. At any moment during daylight hours you can look up to the sky see skydivers floating down to the event or you can look around you and see massive circus tents, fire performers, stilt walkers, giant art installations, modified vehicles, and about anything else that would make you feel like you were no longer on Earth…or at least not in 2006. Started in 1986, Larry Harvey and Jerry James built and burned a wooden figure on a beach in San Francisco. Surrounded by a dozen people, friends and strangers whose faces were lit by the fire emanating from the flaming figure, Harvey and James had the realization that they had set something special in motion. They were so inspired by the act they decided to rebuild the “man” and reconvene at the same spot on the anniversary the coming
year. Continue they did, with the number of participants increasing dramatically the next few years. Due to this rapid increase in 1990 it was moved to Black Rock Desert, Nevada. This set the stage for what would eventually evolve into Black Rock City starting with the 1995 Burning Man. Fast forward to current days. The population of the attendees (or “burners”) that come together to make up Black Rock City, which for the week becomes the third largest “city” in Nevada, now exceeds 35,000 plus. The “city” has greatly evolved over the past few years and now has it’s own radio stations, newspapers, post office, emergency crew, DMV (Department of Mutant Vehicles), and an airport for small, private planes. The event also has the Black Rock Rangers, veterans of the event who volunteer and are non-confrontational community mediators who work to maintain the safety and order. The Black Rock Desert is a site to be seen in itself-a 400 square mile, thoroughly flat, prehistoric lake bed, completely devoid of any vegetation or animal habitat. The name comes from a large, prominent dark rock formation located at the north end of the desert. During the summer, the lake bed is primarily a hardpan alkaline playa consisting of fine-grained sediments infused with alkali salts. During the winter, it becomes a temporary lake which flattens the surface sediment and erases all footprints. Also surrounded by the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the unique geological feature of this area makes it the perfect place for Burning Man to be held. As radical and anarchic as Burning Man may seem, there a few mandatory rules for the week that make the event more manageable (and possible). First, it is a “leave no trace” event. Everything you bring you must also take as you depart from the playa. Second, the concept of self-sufficiency is a major part of the experience. Bring everything you need, and make sure to read “The Burning Man Survival Guide” on the website that gives you all the do’s and don’ts. Attendees are expected to bring along all their own water, GARDEN
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food, shelter, and any other supplies needed for desert living. Be Prepared. Between the dust storms, intense heat reaching well into the 100’s and the night temperatures dipping into the low 40’s, the desert can be a harsh environment. There is no vending of any kind in Black Rock City. The two exceptions to this rule are Center Camp Café where the proceeds from purchasing different coffees and teas go toward materials for next years event. Another is Camp Antartica behind Center Camp, where Burning Man volunteers sell bags of ice with proceeds going to the nearest town’s (Gerlach) education system. Many of artists, performers, and participants also bring little items of various worth to the event -- pins, small artwork, stickers, crystals, cards, buttons, clothes, jewelry, and various other things-- for bartering, trading, or to give as gifts. Getting around the event can be tricky if you are only relying on your own two feet. You may only use your car to enter and leave the event. Once you park you are expected to leave your car parked. The exceptions to the “no car rule” are the art cars or “mutant vehicles” as they are now referred to. Ranging from double decker party buses that look like pirate ships to giant, flame-spewing dragons made entirely from ornately detailed metal work (and housing a bar inside) these vehicles must be creatively and permanently altered to be exempt and licensed at BRC’s DMV. Bicycles are the best means of transportation and a must bring for any “burner” as the event spans over a couple of miles. Theme camps are the interactive core and a major factor at Burning Man. These camps are composed of large groups of people who camp together and build large structures and installations with a particular interactive focus. Theme camps provide a communal space with activity, and create a visual presence and ambience. Open to everyone for investigation and participation, a typical theme camp has 20-50 members, but some grow to 30 GARDEN
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hundreds. Some groups of theme camps cluster to form into villages, which usually share an overarching meta-theme. A few of of this years theme camps and villages were Cirque Berzerk: a darker, more twisted version of Cirque du Soleil, Death Guild’s Thunderdome: recreated from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in which the matches were fought with a combination of bungee cords, elevation, and foam-covered weapons in front of hordes of of burners who crave a spectacle, and Entheon Village: which was a much traveled creative oasis housing the MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association of Psychadelic Studies) organization and visionary artist/guru Alex Grey’s CoSM (Chapel of Sacred Mirrors) which together combined into a community of psychedelic elders, scientists, researchers, visionaries, explorers, and artists. Many domes were set up throughout Entheon Village and acted as galleries to many visionary artists such as Robert Venosa, Cary Thompson, Martina Hoffmann, and Dean Chamberlain. Hundreds of art installations are spread throughout the event. The more massive and creative of these large-scale installations are placed on the no camping area that surrounds the man for a mile radius. One group, The Flaming Lotus Girls have been producing remarkable, monumental fire art over the last 5 years. This year they conceived the Serpent Mother, a highly kinetic participant controlled behemoth of a creature. The space that was created by the Serpent around her egg encouraged participants to interact with one another or activate the installation. One could choose to make the serpent’s head and neck move or make the jaws open and close. There were ten different sequenced patterns for the thirty one flame shooting devices which ran down the spine that could be initiated, by buttons or proximity sensors, LED lights illuminating the body were also interactive by changing based on a participant’s heartbeat. The freestanding ribs of the serpent could be also be moved by the interaction with them. The Man himself is the focal installation of course. Standing at around 50 feet in height, the figure is placed on top of a different structure year to year
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according to the theme of the event. This year’s theme was “Hope and Fear, The Future” and the structure under the man named the Pavilion of the Future. Inside the pavilion was a maze of rooms containing different utopic (visions of our highest hopes) or dystopic (cautionary tales that buys into fear and what a dim future has in store) installations. Participants were encouraged to vote for either “hope” or “fear” depending on what ruled their lives. The more people voted for “hope”, the higher the Man would rise, the more for “fear”, the lower he would sink back into the building. At night the Man would glow with the neon that lined his wooden frame and the pavilion underneath him had many different ambient lights to really transform the structure into a beacon. The whole week of building, creating, experiencing, helping, singing, dancing, playing, making friends, and trying to get a little sleep here and there culminates to Saturday night, the night of “The Burn”. At sunset the 35,000 plus “burners” make their way by foot, bike, or mutant vehicle toward the center to surround the man and celebrate his being lit on fire. Most everyone is decked out in some kind of flamboyant costume…giant bunnies, spacemen, blue painted aliens, stilt walking birds, and more dance around the playa with anticipation as the thousands of fire performers surround the inner circle and start to spin, twirl, breath, and manipulate flames. The Man then raises his arms into the sky and the biggest pyrotechnic/fireworks show you’ve ever seen begins. Music is coming from every speaker and instrument on the playa and roaring cheers are constantly enveloping the air from the entire crowd as they jump up and down with excitement. The giant torch procession begins to the man and the cheers get louder. He is then lit and everyone goes wild as the flames consume the structure with fireworks still exploding in the sky. Everyone watches as he falls and becomes one giant fire pit. People start to rush wildly toward the downed man. The Man will burn for another hour until he goes out and the party will last all night. The Burning Man festival means different things for different people. 32 GARDEN
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Everyone comes away learning different lessons, having different experiences, making new friends, hopefully knowing themselves a little better, realizing the importance of “community” and perhaps with a spark lit inside them that will turn into a fire that they take back home with to share with their community.
Mission Statement “Our mission is to produce the annual event known as “Burning Man” and to guide, nurture and protect the more permanent community created by its culture. Our intention is to generate society that connects each individual to his or her creative powers, to participation in community, to the larger realm of civic life, and to the even greater world of nature that exists beyond society. We believe that the experience of Burning Man can produce positive spiritual change in the world. To this end, it is equally important that we communicate with one another, with the citizens of Black Rock City and with the community of Burning Man wherever it may arise. Burning Man is radically inclusive, and its’ meaning is potentially accessible to anyone. The touchstone of value in our culture will always be immediacy: experience before theory, moral relationships before politics, survival before services, roles before jobs, embodied ritual before symbolism, work before vested interest, participant support before sponsorship. Finally, in order to accomplish these ends, Burning Man must endure as a self-supporting enterprise that is capable of sustaining the lives of those who dedicate themselves to its work. From this devotion spring those duties that we owe to one another. We will always burn the Man.” - www.burningman.com I encourage you to learn more about (and go to!) Burning Man! visit the website. The Man burns in 339 days!
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Oh, No!!image: It’s Dr. Dog. By Prabir Jason Lefton The past few years have been busy for the Philadelphia-based band Dr. Dog. They went from playing a few shows a year to opening for large national acts such as My Morning Jacket, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and currently the Jack White and Brendan Benson project The Raconteurs. This band’s infectious pop sound has been developing for nearly six years, but last year’s release of “Easybeat” (their sophomore album) blew the doors wide open for international attention and the development of a loyal and ever-growing fan base. I had a chance to sit down and talk with Scott, Toby, Justin, Zach and Frank before their show at Gallery5. This was not a formal interview by any means, but more of an opportunity for myself, a fan, to talk to the creators of what I consider to be one of the best albums released in the last five years. Prabir: So, guys how’s the tour going with the Raconteurs?
Toby: It’s been pretty nice. Those guys are nice guys and the crowds have been good. They’re a bit of a heavier band, more Sabbath-ish or Zeppelin-ish. Prabir: Have the crowds been receptive to you guys? Toby: Yeah, pretty much across the board we’ve been getting good responses. Prabir: How long has the band been around, six years? Toby: It’s hard to tell really. Justin: In a touring sense, about three. Prabir: This wasn’t the original lineup? Were there lots of member changes? Scott: Sort of a lot. We’ve been going at it for a long time. And Justin joined about three years ago. Zach: I joined about six years ago. Scott: Six? That number baffles me.
Prabir: So how did this monster come into existence? Was it just you two (Toby and Scott)? Toby: Yeah. Scott: Yeah, he and I met and started playing together when we were really little. We always had a general sense of the type of ideal band we wanted to be in, but it took a really long time just because of the fact that we were just willing to write and record on a 4 track and have fun that way. We weren’t pushing too hard about trying to get a live thing going. Plus, we were joining all these other bands just for fun. Prabir: What other bands? Scott: We were in a bunch of bands at one point. We were both in a band called Raccoon. We were both in a band called Beard. We were both playing with a bluegrass group. I was in a band called Unleash the Bastards. This was all going on in the early days of Dr. Dog, but Dr. Dog always remained sort of the priority, but those other bands just because they were better organized than Dr. Dog actually ended up taking up a lot of time. So, one day it was like we gotta quit all these bands and just do Dr. Dog, and as soon as we did that we said ‘ok, we don’t have band members, so lets find them.’ So, we got everybody and really started hitting the road.
Prabir: The buzz is really starting to swell. Which is great because you guys are a great band.
Prabir: On Easybeat, there are three things I’m really curious about. My favorite line on the entire album is “Where are you going crazy? In your mind or in everybody else’s mind? ” What is that all about? Where did that come from? That’s such a brooding sad line, but executed with such pep.
Toby: We’re lucky in the sense that the bands that like us are popular.
Toby: I remember writing those lines.
Prabir: My Morning Jacket, is that the first big one?
Scott: Yeah, we had written those together. That’s a really rare example of Toby and me writing lyrics together. That’s maybe one of fifty songs. I had written the chords and melody and had them around for years, since I was eighteen or something. I just remember playing that song without lyrics forever and then finally one night he and I were like ‘we’re putting them down’ and we came up with those lyrics. The only
Zach: Yeah, I couldn’t play one show with you at Rex’s because I wasn’t 21 yet.
Toby: Yeah, by far, before that we had only been playing like a few times a year. Justin had just joined the band about three months before we went to Oregon and since then that just got the ball rolling for us. 36 GARDEN
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thing I knew is that we were going to go on a premise of what it feels like to be ignored or isolated. I was talking about getting the cold shoulder. Prabir: The other thing that I liked quite a bit were the strings in “Oh No.” Where did that come from? Scott: That song... Justin: We’d been playing that song for a long time before strings were added. That’s how it existed. That’s one of the oldest Dr. Dog songs. I guess Scott just got the notion to do a string section there. Scott: Well it became apparent to me when we recorded that song that it would be a very good candidate for a kind of cut and paste type of song because I could just disassociate all the parts from each other so easily. So, that’s what we did. We recorded it in three sections, so the first part is just the basic guitar, drums, and vocals. Then the second part I knew we could have done whatever we wanted because it’s just an A and a couple of chords that change under it, but that’s all we had. A friend of ours is Brendan Koonie, who writes string arrangements for a lot of bands in Philly and he’s just an all around genius. He did some arrangements on our new album coming out soon and once again he just nailed it. So, I just went over to his house and said ‘here’s this little section basically its sixteen bars of A...write whatever the hell you want.” Prabir: The final one... “Today” and “California,” as far songs go, they’re adorable. They’re like little puppies. They’re these cute little songs. Do you guys ever get into your own songs and feel like “Oh, I don’t like this chord, its a little too dark.” ? Scott: Yeah, that’s exactly where I am right now. All the songs I’ve been writing in the last two years I feel like have been a lot darker. Overtly dark. I feel as good about them as songs I’ve written, but it does feel weird taking that direction with the band because we’ve always tried to be positive. Though, I’d say that even our darkest material remains positive.
Toby: Lyrically it can be whatever. Like “Oh No.” Scott: Its funny you mention “Today” and “California” because those two songs, I was... not that I was... but I was commissioned out to write a song -- I set out to write a song for someone as a gift. “Today” was for our old drummer, Today, whose name is Ted, but we called him Today. “California” was written for my cousin who got married, who’s from Los Angeles. The both had such specific audience to them that I just went right for the throat with it. For me, if I’m going to write a song for somebody, for a friend or a family member, I’m not going to try to wow them with my poetics or something. It’s going to be right to the point. Prabir: My final question...”Dutchman Falls.” What is that song about? Toby: There’s actually a place, it’s a great place. It’s a little offshoot of the Appalachian Trail. But there’s a place trail called the loyal sock trail and there’s this place called Dutchman Falls. I don’t know man, Tom Waits is my favorite guy of all time. So, I used to live with my grandparents and my uncle who plays bass. He actually plays bass on “Dutchman Falls.” He’s a musician and he would have all these books, like real books that have chord changes and stuff. And I would flip through them and learn chords on guitar. The first four chord to that song are from that book. I usually don’t know changes like that on the guitar. So, I was just playing those and the chords just kind of write themselves, but I would be at my grandparents and they would go to sleep and I would just be sitting outside, and they’re out there in the woods and I’d just be drinking and it would be all dark and I’d just be sitting there smoking cigarettes and looking at the dog and it’s an old farm. So there was a good vibe to the place. Toby: Yeah. I would just be thinking about the songs that Tom Waits writes about murder in the red barns and all that. Prabir: So it’s not a true story then? Toby: Oh no.
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by Andrew Necci image : Nick Martin As I write this, it’s been a little over a week since the Nanci Raygun closed down. That’s a bummer, and there’s been plenty of ink spilled in local alternative weeklies about just how much of a bummer it is. But that’s not what I want to talk about here. Instead, I want to talk about something else that happened to the Richmond underground music scene last week that you’re probably not going to hear about from the alternative weeklies, something as bad or worse than what happened to the Nanci Raygun. I want to talk about the Fortress of Solid Dudes getting shut down. “House shows are the lifeblood of any good music scene.” That was me, only a couple months ago, in this very magazine, writing about the scene here in Richmond. I elaborated on why that was the case then, and if you didn’t read the article, get a copy and read my explanation. I’ve got a limited amount of space here, and I can’t spend too much of it restating. For now, let’s assume it’s the truth. In which case, it’s a major kick in the teeth for the Fortress to stop doing shows. Coming in the week after Nanci Raygun’s closing, it’s even worse, due to the fact that a lot of upcoming shows originally booked at Nanci Raygun had been moved there. These shows have now been cancelled for a second time, with their promoters having to scramble even harder just to find a place to have them. A whole bunch of those shows may not happen at all now. The biggest tragedy here is that this was all completely preventable. The reason that the Fortress got shut down was that some kids who had shows there in the near future put up posters for the shows all over town with the address of the house on them. The Fortress’s landlord saw some of them and told them that if they continued having shows there, they’d be evicted. Understandably, that’s not a risk they can afford to I TS MY 29 TH B IRTHDAY TODAY 39
take. House shows, in the best of times, exist in an area of dubious legality. With gentrification as widespread as it is in Richmond right now, and with VCU slowly consuming all of the areas that surround its campus, this can hardly be called the best of times. Therefore, precautions must be taken if people want house shows to continue happening. I was angry when I found out about the flyers that were posted around the city, but as disappointed as I am in the kids who put them up (I know them, and they should have known better), I’m not writing this to name names or point fingers. What’s done is done, and laying blame isn’t going to solve anything right now. Instead, I’m going to share some basic Do’s and Don’ts of putting on house shows, for everyone’s future reference. First and foremost, don’t put up posters with the house’s address on them. Better yet, don’t put up posters at all. If you want to advertise for a house show, passing out flyers at shows in the weeks leading up to the show is effective and should be more than sufficient. House shows don’t exist on the same scale as club shows, and almost no house show venue will ever be able to hold the same amount of people as a club. The Fortress was probably close to the size of the Nanci Raygun (which had a capacity of 300) and it was the biggest house show venue that I can remember existing in Richmond. Most houses that do shows can hold 50 to 150 people in the rooms where the band plays, and since there’s no stage, some of those people won’t be able to see anything anyway. Because of this, heavy promotion of a house show that you already know will draw a decent amount of people is actually counter-productive, as it will lead to a lot of people hanging around outside (more on this in a little while). But this isn’t the real reason you don’t want to put up posters in public places for house shows. The real reason is that anyone can read a poster on a telephone people, including people who you don’t want reading them. In the Fortress’s case, it was their landlord who read them, but in all of my other experiences of posters causing problems for house shows, it’s been cops. Cops showing up at your house show means, if nothing else, 40 GARDEN
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that it will get shut down, and some bands probably won’t be able to play. It could also mean arrests, court, fines, and even jail time if you’re not careful. Even if you don’t put up posters, the cops could show up due to noise complaints (more about preventing these in a bit). These next tips are very important to observe for precisely that reason. Don’t charge admission at the door. Let me qualify that, before I go on: when you’ve got touring bands playing, you do want to be able to collect donations, so that you can pay them. You can do this by passing a hat, but some people are more likely to donate if you hit them up right as they’re going in, so having a doorman may be the best option. You can even suggest a donation amount. When I used to work the door at house shows back in the day, I would say something like “It’s three bucks if you’ve got it.” But if someone gave me a buck, or a quarter, or nothing, I’d let them in. You have to, because as soon as you refuse someone admission, you’re no longer taking donations but instead charging a cover. You don’t have a business license, and even if you did, you’re doing this at a house, which means the building is zoned as residential and can’t have a business run out of it anyway. Charging a cover at a house show is illegal, and can have devastating repercussions. In 2001, a local house called the House of Mosh refused admission to an undercover cop. This started a chain of events that ended with the promoter of the show going to court and being assessed with a heavy fine. Worse, the kids who lived in the house were evicted by the police, and literally given until 6 AM the next morning to get themselves and everything they owned out of the house. A lot of people left a lot of things behind. This can happen to you too, so don’t play around. The other big “in case of cops” tip—Don’t serve alcohol. You’re running some risk to even have a BYOB policy, as the cops (were they to show up) could decide to check for underage drinkers. If they found any, they could charge the kids who live at the house with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. However, this is the kind of thing I’ve only really heard about
happening at suburban high school parties (knock on wood), so the risk you’re running here is very low. If you have kegs or something of that nature, though, the risk is far greater. I know, I know, frat boys have keggers all the time. However, if you’re taking donations, and you’re also serving alcohol, the cops will say that you are charging people to drink. Regardless of how true this is, it will hold up in court, and you will pay a fine. Worse, the cops will confiscate the door money, and the touring bands won’t get paid. You don’t want this to happen, obviously, so don’t have kegs at your house show. Unless it’s a free show, of course. As I mentioned before, noise complaints will bring the cops down on you even faster than posters on telephone poles. There are two really important things you can do to (hopefully) avoid these. First, soundproof the area where you’re having the bands play. Basements are always better than living rooms or attics, because the ground will absorb a lot of sound, and the windows, if there are any, are much smaller and easier to cover up. However, living rooms and the like are doable too. Dumpster some old grody mattresses and use them to cover up the windows. It’d probably also be a good idea not to have the show in a room that has a door leading directly outside (or at least to make sure that door stays closed while the bands are playing). The more a door like that gets opened, the more sound escapes outside. Speaking of outside, avoid having kids hanging out on the front porch/sidewalk of your house. There’s probably no way to avoid having kids hang out outside of the room where the show is. House shows get ridiculously hot and ridiculously cramped, and people are going to seek respite, sometimes during and especially between bands. If you have a backyard, or even a living room (assuming that’s not where the bands are playing), where people can chill, this is ideal. The front yard, the front porch, and especially a public sidewalk, are bad places for people to hang. Your neighbors are more likely to complain, and cops that are driving by are more likely to stop and investigate.
But of course, the later it gets, the more that the loud crowd hanging out in the backyard will be a problem. Therefore, start your show as early as possible. I know everyone’s too busy buying beer and hanging out to show up before 10, but if you start the shows at 8 every time, and half the people miss half the show every time, people will start taking you more seriously, and the kids who care about seeing bands and not just about hanging out and drinking will start showing up on time. There are some time-related things you should know, by the way. First of all, though no one who books all-ages club shows seems to pay attention to it anymore, Richmond does have a curfew of 11 PM for kids under 18. If your show runs after 11, cops may use the curfew as an excuse to bust it up (regardless of how old the people at the show are). Richmond also has a noise ordinance, and I’d always heard that it kicks in at a certain time. However, from consulting fandistrict.org, I’ve learned that the Richmond noise ordinance applies to “drums, loudspeakers, etc.” 24 hours a day. I’ve also learned that the Fan District Association, in collaboration with the Richmond Police Department, has created a Party Patrol, to identify and presumably target “party houses”. Fandistrict.org even features a nifty map of party houses in the Fan (don’t worry, none of the places that do house shows are on it right now). For more information about this initiative, hit up fandistrict.org or call (804) 317-2840. Wheee. There are always risks involved with doing house shows. However, the risks can be greatly decreased just by using some common sense. Right now, Richmond’s scene is hurting from the loss of two important venues in the same week. There are holes that need to be filled, and if those of you reading this article care about filling them, there are few better ways to do so than to start doing house shows yourself. If you think you have a decent space in which to do them, and you take care to observe the guidelines above, you could really help the scene out. Let’s get to it.
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Government Warning by Sean Patrick Rhorer image: Chris Lacroix Over the past year, it’s been hard not to take note of one of Richmond’s best new bands: Government Warning. Since their formation in early 2005, they’ve been winning over both punk and hardcore fans with their impressively energetic live shows and catchy-yet-raw songwriting. I caught up with bassist Alex DiMattesa, singer Kenny Ball, and drummer Brandon Ferrell to discuss their new album, the state of Richmond punk/hardcore, and some controversy over lyrics. SPR: How did Government Warning get started and what lead to the current lineup? BF: Well we started because me and Mikey were skating the mini-ramp down the street from my house. We talked about how awesome Zero Boys and Adolescents were and shit, and then we jammed one night and the rest is history. Eric and Kenny came on board and we did that and then Mikey quit so we switched it up and Alex came on board on bass. Blah, blah, blah... this is our solid line up now. AD: To be honest, I was both extremely flattered and somewhat intimidated when they asked me, because they knew how to play their instruments about a million times better than me, but I couldn’t pass up such an offer. We started playing with our current lineup in September 2005, and recorded the LP at the beginning of this year. That pretty much brings us up to date. SPR: Your new album, No Moderation, came out on Yannick of Tragedy’s label Feral Ward. How did that come about? Have you gotten a lot more exposure from it than before? 42
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BF: Yannick’s a real good guy and he’s really honest. He’s hard working and he’s in bands so he knows how bands should be treated. So yeah, me and Lauren (No Way Records) split the Direct Control LP with him and I asked him if he wanted to do the Government Warning LP and he was way down of course. Yeah, I think the LP is everywhere and most people are stoked on it, even the lyrics. AD: We could not ask for more, Yannick has done so much for us with this record and beyond. As far as more “exposure,” I’m not sure if people are checking out Government Warning based on us being on Feral Ward, but Yannick has done very well in making the record available to anyone who wants to check it out and that is definitely something to be grateful for. SPR: Speaking about your new album, there’s been some discussion that the lyrical content might be offensive to some, especially within the song “Fat Nation.” Interested in shedding some light on your thoughts in this area? AD: Kenny is probably most qualified to answer this question, but I will say that I don’t think any of the lyrics were specifically meant to be controversial or offensive. But then again, I think it’s safe to say that there are times when punk rock should be controversial and offensive to an extent, as well as confrontational. You should be able to speak your mind without worrying about whose sensitive ears are listening, or whose feelings might get hurt, or trying to work within the constraints of someone’s narrow view of what “punk” is and isn’t. I think it is a good thing if lyrics open up intelligent discussion. The key word, however, is “intelligent,” and that doesn’t always seem to be case. KB: I expected some backlash about it. I think unfortunately there is just a lot of disagreement and misunderstanding. The song was never intended to be a bashing of overweight people. It’s more about people being too
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lazy to leave the low-carb bagels alone and go for a jog. I eat Taco Bell a lot, personally. I do think however, that blaming “corporations” for making those sausage biscuits a little too tasty is absurd. Obviously, some people have taken the song very personally, as I’ve been singled out and even addressed as “a skinny teenager living off of alcohol instead of food,” or something along those lines. I’m not here to play it safe and write songs about the same things over and over again, like the Bush administration for example. Punk rock was never a politically correct haven for people to escape Gap commercials that make them feel ugly. My lyrics are not anti-fat propaganda, I just can’t stand the state of things, and it starts there. Besides, what sort of place is a hardcore record review to preach? I guess I’m more offensive than I thought. SPR: Speaking of reviews, even great ones of “No Moderation” comment that the album sounds a lot like early ‘80s bands. What’s your take on that? BF: That’s where we draw our influence, except for Alex ‘cause he likes The Smiths... ick. RKL, Necros, Social Unrest, Adolescents... that’s the good stuff. 44 GARDEN
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AD: As far as songwriting, I’m sure we wear our influences on our sleeves but we are perfectly fine with that. We set out to play a style of music we all love, so obviously the influences from those early ‘80s bands are going to shine through. Any comparison to that era of hardcore is a compliment to me, whether it is meant to be or not. Sound-wise, there is an obvious reason... we all own shitty equipment. Some of us don’t even own equipment. It’s not like we worked to get an “authentic” punk sound with some million dollar amps and guitars... we just plugged in played. It does help to have an engineer like Lance at Minimum Wage who can help get the actual sound you want though, he did an awesome job with the record. SPR: All of you seem pretty active in the Richmond punk/hardcore scene beyond just Government Warning. What are some of the other things you guys are up to? AD: Aside from doing Direct Control with Eric, Brandon has also taken over drum duties in Wasted Time and does No Way Records with his girlfriend (and Government Warning roadie extraordinaire) Lauren. They do one of the best record labels around right now, so if you haven’t picked
up anything they’ve put out, do so as soon as possible. I do Grave Mistake Records, other than that I’m a bum. Kenny spends most of his time locked in a dark room trying to figure out ways to offend fat people. SPR: What’s your perception of how Richmond punk/hardcore is doing these days? Has it improved since you’ve been involved or not? Do you think Nanci Raygun and The Fortress of Solid Dudes getting shutdown will have an impact? BF: I think the scene is fucking great right now and has been for a while. A lot of kids really support this shit, and there’s a lot of different kind of kids coming out where the scene used to suck... a lot. Ummm, yeah I think more venues need to open up for sure... I miss Nanci Raygun. A lot of people talked shit on that place but I loved it. Great sound, they didn’t rip me off... you know, it was just nice. AD: Richmond always has a ton of kids into hardcore and punk, and shows usually have really good turnouts, be it club, bar, or basement. Unfortunately, you have pretty much separate scenes for each subgenre, but I guess that’s understandable. There isn’t much to complain about, and I have personally noticed a good mix of all types of punk and/or hardcore kids coming out when we play, dancing and stage diving together having fun... always refreshing to see as opposed to 100 kids who all look the same, all standing around with their thumbs up their asses, posing hard, or being drunk and stupid. Variety is a spice of life. As far as the venue situation, the hardcore and punk scene here definitely will suffer a bit from losing two very important all-ages venues, but I’m sure it will manage. Hopefully it will motivate other people to try and find new venues and keep things going.
AD: This is the answer where we get the chance to name-drop our favorite Richmond bands. I would just want Avail to play every song they have ever written straight through from start to finish. Inquisition, Count Me Out, Unseen Force, and Funsize can open the show. BF: Direct Control, Government Warning, Wasted Time, Cloak/Dagger, White Cross, Unseen Force, Graven Image, Resurrection, Honor Role at like a two-day Lollapalooza fest thing. KB: White Cross. SPR: What will be happening in the near future for Government Warning? AD: Not too much, we are playing The Fest V down in Gainesville, Florida at the end of October, and This Is For You Fest in Daytona at the end of December. Both of those should be a lot of fun. Then there is talk of the West Coast this winter, so hopefully that will work out. Other than that, not much planned. Hopefully we will start practicing regularly (which we haven’t really done at all this year), and start cranking out some more records. BF: More records, more tours. Europe and Japan hopefully. More offensive lyrics. Good stuff like that. SPR: Any final comments? KB: Offer up your basement and help save local hardcore. AD: People who feel the need to take cheap shots at our band will get what is coming to them. We know where you live.
SPR: If you could book a show featuring exclusively the best bands from Richmond without time being an issue, who would play? GARDEN
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MASTODON Blood Mountain Reprise Records
invoke brutality and violence (The first track “The Wolf is Loose” runs after you, quickly The metal gods known hunts you down, and as Mastodon are back rips out your jugular) with their third full while another may trek length album (this to the more melodic one being their first corners of the conmajor label release). sciousness ( “Sleeping They have once again Giant” ). This is also the successfully crafted bands most experianother classic, mental album to date epic album that stirs with more prog (but mythological images grinding) riffs, more while giving underlyvocal experimentation, ing themes of the “man more manipulation of vs.” that the band is sound, and dizzying known for. Seemingly a time changes that soundtrack made for a swirl together to blur metal loving Odysseus, the line between rock, Mastodon takes us on metal, and prog. Make an aural rollercoaster no mistake: Brann ride through the many Dailor is one of the multi-faceted laybest metal drummers ers and levels of their in the world and he world. One song may really shows it in every 46 ELECTRONIC MUSIC
= TURNSTYLE
song. The rest of the crew really step up as well with intricate guitar work from both Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher, and some great bass work from Troy Sanders. Brents vocals have become even cleaner on this album (yes there is “singing” ) and Troy’s gutteral screams still have power but with more range as well. There a few guests on the album but if it wasn’t listed you may not even catch it. Neurosis vocalist Scott Kelly, Queen Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme and Cedric Bixler-Zavala from the Mars Volta make an appearance on this masterpiece.
Easily one of the best metal albums of the year, Blood Mountain shows Mastodon’s tight musicianship get even tighter and more focused without losing power or impact.Parker BOB DYLAN Modern Times Columbia Records He’s over 60 and he’s still doing it. And by ‘it’ I mean that unexplainable quality that sets him apart and above most 20th Century musical artists. Bob Dylan’s Modern Times stands with the same American body of his previous works, but with a fresh face and new thoughts.
Other reviews have branded this record as the third of a trilogy amongst Love & Theft and Time Out of Mind . I’d say more of a sign that over the past 15 years Bob Dylan is perfecting the way to record himself in the digital era. The album is a fresh blend of traditional American country, folk, blues, and jazz (and let us not forget natural reverb). The lyrics are catchy and memorable, beginning at the opening song’s Alicia Keys name drop. Apparently, Dylan was crying, wondering where she could be. There’s nothing else like this coming out
right now in mainstream music (it went straight to numero uno on Billboard). Combine that with his upcoming tour support of Kings of Leon, Foo Fighters (acoustic), and the Raconteurs and Bob Dylan will be introducing a new generation to the classic American songbook. -Frankie Lee OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW Big Iron World Nettwerk Having only discovered OCMS after their last album was released, I’ve spent the last year or so digging into their back catalogue for all the gems it holds.
This newest addition to their discography proves to be ever so slightly different, yet still possesses all the youthful bluegrass charm they’re known for delivering. With less of the fast-paced style present (although it’s there at times), OCMS have instead opted for a good number of midtempo tunes, presenting a more warm and dare I say even dark imagine throughout Big Iron World . Fans of bluegrass and those who only have a passing interest can surely love this album (and all OCMS for that matter). -Sean Patrick Rhorer
PANIC Strength In Solitude Bridge Nine Records
2002, it’s remarkable how well they stand up against contemporary hardcore acts. Their fast and chaotic style (ala 7” era Unbroken , who they actually cover) and small output makes listening to this CD over and over very likely.-Sean Patrick Rhorer
on to how incredible they really are until recently. As with many Samiam fans, I tend to Although Panic lean towards “You Are recently reunited and Freaking Me Out” and recorded new mate“Astray” as their best rial, this isn’t that reefforts, so comparing lease. Instead, Bridge “Whatever’s Got You Nine repackaged the Down” against those band’s two previous makes for some hard EPs, along with demo standards to live up songs, making up this to... While this new collection CD. Panic SAMIAM album gets off to a Whatever’s Got You features Gibby Miller rather rocky start, the (former vocalist of The Down boys pull it through Hopeless Records Trouble and creator as songs pass and by of makeoutclub.com) the end, the indicative It’s kind of funny that singing, as well as Samiam sound rings this new Samiam is members of other through. Balancing coming out just as such notable Boston poppy catchiness with I’m discovering the bands as American heartfelt intensity, few Nightmare, In My Eyes, genius of their music. bands have perfected I have been exposed and The Explosion. the punk-influenced/ Although these songs to Samiam since the post-hardcore rock mid-’90s, yet for some thing as well as Samiwere all recorded reason never caught between 2001 and am and this album
serves as further proof of that.-Sean Patrick Rhorer KAKI KING Until We Felt Red Velour Recordings Kaki King is a talented young guitarist, who has made her name over the past couple of years with two excellent instrumental albums. When the word got out last year that she was beginning to sing at some of her live performances, some of her fans were outraged. If not understandable, this kind of reaction is never all that surprising, as there are way too many people in the world who can’t stand for anything they like
to change in even the smallest ways. Sometimes they’re even right; sometimes an artist’s first big change is enough to ruin their sound forever. In this case, though, the purists were wrong. If anything, Until We Felt Red is even better than King’s first two albums. The vocals, which only show up on 5 songs out of 13 anyway, are understated and elegant, and add a lot to the songs on which they appear. Starting to sing, even on occasion, also seems to have led King to focus more on song structure than she has in the past. There is an increased sense of cohesion to these GARDEN
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songs than appeared on previous albums, a fact that extends even to the instrumentals here. Having proven her virtuosity in ample doses on previous albums, she’s content for the most part to keep instrumental sections based in riffs and melodies, usually avoiding anything that could be considered soloing. The album captures many different musical moods, which might sound like some mid 20th century jazz cliché, but is also the truth. This does keep the album from being perfect; the vibe-inflected jazz of “Goby” is a bit too smooth for its own good, and “Gay Sons 48
LOCAL HIP HOP
of Lesbian Mothers” is rather anticlimactic as an album ender, as it just seems to drift along in a new age haze rather than ever going anywhere. Most of the songs are solid hits, though, in particular the slide-guitar grunge riffs of the title track, the head-spinningly complex time signature shifts of “These Are The Armies of the Tyrannized,” and the hazy, melodic indiepsych of “Jessica,” a song on which King’s vocals are the key element of its brilliance. Another vocal number, “You Don’t Have To Be Afraid,” is not only the longest but also
= CONCICE RECORDS
the most successful song on the album. Over the course of its eight-minute length, it goes through multiple personality shifts, its different dynamics and melodies all linked together by King’s simple but perfect vocals. The lyrics consist of only one line, sung over and over in several different ways: “You don’t have to be afraid of the pain inside you.” Set in conjunction with some of the most beautiful guitar work on the album, this feels as comforting as having a warm blanket draped over your shoulders on a cold night. - Andrew Necci
THE MOUNTAIN GOATS brush his guitar strings, Get Lonely and his vocals are only 4AD Records slightly above a whisper, sometimes rising Considering that they up to a high falsetto started out as a guy that makes them even playing acoustic guitar more hushed. Instruand singing into the mental accompaniment built-in mic on a boom is generally muted and box, The Mountain minimal; there may be Goats have never keyboards, lead guitar, been all that loud and string sections of a musical entity. playing on the songs However, bandleader (there are rarely any John Darnielle has drums), but they fade certainly done his so deeply into the backshare of pounding on ground that you may his guitar and singing not notice them if you at the top of his voice aren’t paying attention. in the past, so the All of this provides a sheer soft quietness very effective backdrop of Get Lonely may still to Darnielle’s powerful come as a surprise lyrics. Conceived as a to longtime listeners. sequel to “The Sunset On most of the songs Tree,” an autobiographihere, Darnielle’s fincal chronicle of survivgertips seem barely to ing childhood abuse,
Get Lonely was inspired by the many letters Darnielle received from fans who, in the wake of that album’s release, discussed their own childhood traumas, and by the connection he noted between childhood abuse and the inability to sustain functional relationships later in life. The lyrics this time around have moved away from autobiography and back towards the fictional tales that populated earlier Mountain Goats albums, but as with those earlier albums, they are written with empathy and depth that belie their fictional nature. “Woke Up New” paints a picture of the first morning after a live-in
lover has departed. “The first time I made coffee for just myself, I made too much of it,” he sings. “But I drank it all, just because you hate it when I let things go to waste.” At other points on the album, he envisions loneliness through the eyes of monsters, placing him and, by extension, the listener into the monster’s position, and making them sympathetic by doing so. In “If You See Light” he sings, “When the villagers come to my door I will breathe shallow breaths from high up in my stomach,” then begins gasping, “Ah-ah-ahah-ah.” It’s a frightening image, but an even more frightening
moment occurs at the end of the particularly quiet “New Monster Avenue.” As Darnielle sings the song’s last line, “All the neighbors come on out to their front porches, waving torches,” the music rises from the background in a manner that might not even be noticeable in another context. Here, however, it sends chills up the spine of the listener. This album is like a guided tour through all of your darkest, most isolated moments, and can be almost unbearable at times. And yet its beauty pulls you in, makes it impossible to turn away. - Andrew Necci
tracks include Foot to the Throat, with a classic LoG style breakdown, “More Time to Richmond, VA quintet Kill,” which takes their signature style to a Lamb of God’s latest more mathematical release is a beautilevel than ever before, ful monster. Instead of simply taking their and album-closer sound in a new direc- “Beating On Death’s Door,” which showtion, they somehow cases all of the band manage to take it members to the top of backwards and forwards. “Again We Rise” their skill, and segues the album out with a sounds as if it could blood curdling scream. be off of one of their - Ian Graham earlier records, with the signature cut-andstomp that was all over DVD New American Gospel. ANARCHISM ”Redneck” pays hom- IN AMERICA age Pantera, who set AK Press the high bar for southAlthough originally ern metal, and Lamb of God steps up to the shot in 1980, Anarplate. Other standout chism In America offers a surprisingly
LAMB OF GOD Sacrament Epic Records
relevant look at leftist politics in the United States. Through interviews with a number of active anarchistists and those leaning in that direction, filmmakers Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher show that the movement isn’t simply about chaos and destruction, instead fueled for years by the desire for personal freedom. Most interesting of the interviews are those with Mollie Steimer, a longtime friend of well-known anarchist writer and exile Emma Goldman, and Karl Hess,former Republican speechwriter
and correspondent for Newsweek. Hess especially provides some chilling comments about the reaction of people in times of extreme patriotism that echo deeply in the wake of 9/11 despite his being interviewed 21 years earlier. The DVD also features another Fischler/Sucher film entitled Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists that documents the 87 year run of a Yiddish anarchist newspaper. Timely and relevant, this is well worth checking out. - Sean Patrick Rhorer
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One evening, I called the White House switchboard drinking and watching the news. - WH: Hello. White House. TSB: Hello, may I please speak to the President? WH: . . . [hangup] TSB: Jesus, I thought. Why do they even post that number?
The
“Real World” Of Virginia image: Adam Juresko
words: Tyler Bass
Behind U.S. Democratic Senate candidate Jim Webb, a mentally challenged woman, waist deep in middle age, seemed so happy to see him. Mr. Webb talked to eager supporters while he stood with his back to the woman and me. “There’s more where this came from,” said one bearing a check. Another with a Webb tshirt kept tapping the candidate to alert him to the woman, who had begun calling out for him. By that drizzly August 28 at the opening of Webb’s RVA Headquarters on Radford Ave., a Wall Street Journal/Zogby poll was showing Webb in the lead with a 1.3% advantage, continuing his momentum upwards from the primary. “Jim! Jim!” the woman continued to moan as her chin quivered in anticipation. The candidate initially avoided contact with her because of her custom t-shirt: a picture of Sen. George Allen with the screenprinted words “The Real Macaca” below his grinning face. She gestured to her shirt and tried to wave her hero over. Eventually, Webb politely greeted her, and said he could not comment on the shirt because press was nearby. That shirt referenced a widely analyzed August 11 incident in Breaks, Virginia. The Webb team posted video footage captured by a campaign volunteer, Shekar Sidharth. The resulting imbroglio caused Sen. Allen’s poll numbers to take the fast nosedive from July. In front of a small crowd of supporters, he said right into Sidharth’s camera: “This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is, he’s with my opponent. He’s following us around everywhere. And it’s just great. We’re going to places all over Virginia, and he’s having it on film, and it’s great to have you here. And you show it to your opponent [read: Webb], because he’s never been there, and will probably never come, so it’s good for you to see what it’s like out here in the real world.” Allen mocked Webb for traveling to the west coast instead to raise money from a “bunch of Hollywood movie moguls,” right before finishing, “So welcome. Let’s give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.” From there, our Junior Senator segued into remarks about the U.S. War on Extreme Fear. Because Sidharth is of Indian descent (but is a lifelong Virginian), the speech fueled accusation that Allen was appealing to base provincialism in Appalachia. After a slew of apologies, Allen claimed he made up the term “macaca”, and – while the word by some academic accounts is one French colonialists use to refer to ethnic Tunisian natives – Allen’s francophone and Tunisian-American mother said she had to look the term up in her dictionary, where she claimed not to find it. Webb maintained that Allen knew what the word meant, and that its use offended him. GARDEN
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Jim Webb himself holds the distinction of having produced and written the story for “Rules of Engagement,” a 2000 film the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee called at the time “the most vicious anti-Arab racist film ever made by a major Hollywood studio.” Apparently forgetful or ignorant of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre of hundreds of Native Americans (to name just one time and place), Webb said on the Sept. 17 Meet The Press debate, “African-Americans are the only ethnic group in this country that have suffered from deliberate discrimination and exclusion by the government over generations.” He says that Affirmative Action programs originally had good intentions, but – when they support everyone except white people (especially poor white people, as Webb says) – they constitute “state-sponsored racism” as bad as Jim Crow laws. Allen opposes affirmative action unequivocally. In his youth, he had a penchant for the Confederacy, and as a Delegate opposed a holiday honoring Martin Luther King. Standing in the gravel parking lot of Barnes’ Manufacturing in Kenbridge, I stood around making meager acquaintance with Carol Watson, the mayor of nearby Victoria. Soon, Allen’s big campaign bus pulled up, and his Press Secretary Bill Bozin, with his shiny black shoes and bleached, gelled hair, stepped out followed by Allen himself. The Senator is a tall man with dark hair, and a red face. He slouches slightly. The crowd waited patiently around the Barnes’ main office (brown with vinyl siding about the size of a double wide trailer) as the man stepped up in his cowboy boots. I stepped into Mr. Barnes’ office to hear his accounts of business at the lumber-gathering plant. Barnes’ accounts were so-so. Allen asked, “Are you exporting anything?” “Nope,” said Barnes, and the Senator looked disappointed. Allen asked him what he was dipping, and the two men pulled out identical tins of Copenhagen. He commented on how that stuff was grown locally. I looked down into my front shirt pocket to see if my Marlboro Lights indicated a local manufacturer, but the Senator had already snatched them away. “Good product,” he said. “That’s made in Richmond.” Incidentally, UST, Inc., the company that makes the addictive psychoactive 54 GARDEN
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Copenhagen, is one of Allen’s biggest contributors. On those blue moons when I have picked half-smoked cigarettes out of ashtrays to stall off the panic attacks, this all kind of smacks me in the forehead. Don’t get me wrong, though. This is my fault. In my last report, I accounted Allen saying at the Homestead debate, “The people [of Iraq], regardless if they’re Shiite, Sunni or Kurd, are grateful for America liberating their country.” But the answer Allen gave me alleges religious differences as dangerously fracturing Iraq’s national unity. “There will be some Sunnis who will not be grateful because everyone will get to have their say,” said Allen. When it came to Iraq, Webb only referred me to the substantial amount of paperwork he has sitting around about the issue. As Allen insinuates that some Sunni have been suppressing fellow citizens, Webb has said for a long time that it wasn’t our military’s business to fix the situation with occupation. “We didn’t go into Iraq because of terrorism,” he said on the Meet The Press. “We have terrorists in Iraq because we went in there.” During that program, the two candidates differ because Allen seemed to seek long-term U.S. military bases in Iraq, while Webb sees those as irrelevant if Iraq does prove safe. If Webb’s word was true, his son is serving in Iraq right now. The answers I get out of Jim Webb and George Allen regarding net neutrality outlined the quintessential differences between the two major parties. Allen said he wanted a “permanent prohibition” on “tax commissars” he thought make your online access a hassle through government Internet-regulation fees. “I don’t want people’s internet bills to look like their phone bills,” he said, the analogy hinting at charges you might pay for going over your monthly phone minutes. But “if you legislate too much,” he added, “you will slow the growth.” Jim Webb told me that he doesn’t want surfers to have to “pay all of those extra fees” that Internet service providers might attempt to charge others for special services. In short, George Allen thinks that government interference will mess up the speed of Internet growth, while Webb thinks it’s worth the time the Federal Communication Commission is putting into it now. The latter man’s confessions align more closely with advocacy groups such as Save The Internet, which supports the FCC’s traditional definitions of net neutral-
ity, but he did not volunteer the sources of the debate if he knew them at all. To name just one example, STI claims that sometime back in April, America Online was briefly blocking all customer emails that mentioned dearaol.com, a campaign opposing the company’s attempts to charge for the most reliable email services. After the short Allen meet-and-greet, I hit the nearby streets. Stephanie Landry, employee of Kenbridge’s Moe’s Italian Restaurant said that the issues most important to her were abortion (against), gay marriage (against), illegal immigration, and guns. “Where would you draw the line on guns, though?” I asked. “That is, between your run-of-the-mill shotgun and the nuclear bomb?” “The nuclear bomb, I would draw that there,” said Landry with a smile. Landry’s family inspires her views on immigration policy. “My Dad and I were talking the other day; a lot of the [working] Mexicans are sending that money out of Lunenberg County.” Down the block from Moe’s, I caught up with Lunenburg County resident Roberta Ricker inside a local library. She claimed that half of the workers in the county’s manufacturing plants were illegal immigrants. “Without Hispanics,” she said, “the manufacturers wouldn’t know what to do.” She was also worried about the progress of the No Child Left Behind Act. “Why be supportive [of the Act], and then cut the money in the budget?” she wondered. The Iraq War, she opined, is “unjustified” and “a drain on the economy.” As an educator to Juvenile inmates, she worried aloud that the Corrections System “isn’t working right.” Later that day, I made my way back across the RVA expressway and to that rally. When I found a moment, I walked up to Jim Webb and asked him, “What is a terrorist?” A long stare, and his pupils were small and chest stuck out and he looked pissed. That long and intense stare felt somewhere between, C’mon, you little treasonous punk. Don’t insult this rally’s patriotism, and Dear God. Moral Decay has progressed so much that no one can tell the difference
between good and evil. Finally, he asked gruffly, “Why?” “Well, we call a lot of people terrorists,” I said. “Some people call the United States terrorists. I was just wondering if you could give a transcendent definition.” He replied that a terrorist was a “quasi-military person” “who represents a cause and is not associated with a nation state.” It is my belief that his answer reveals a telling, if tacit, policy difference between his opponent and him. During the Homestead debate, Allen alone characterized Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. But because Hezbollah’s political leaders are elected, it does not strictly fit with Webb’s definition. To me, anyway, Hezbollah seems a lot like the Irish Republican Army used to be. On illegal immigration, Webb told me, “Build a wall. Keep them out.” The Democrats continued to rally that day with free hot dogs, lemonade and goods brought by volunteers. The crowd hissed when they heard that Allen voted against incorporating new lines of stem cells into publicly funded use. One man became so spirited during that speech he yelled that one or more of the Bush Administration’s actions was “bullshit.” Moments later, I caught up with him: Gary Agisin, an RVA native. I asked him about illegal immigration, and he told me, “We need more immigrants – it brings in more jobs.” Sure enough, he made a strange bedfellow with Webb. In the crowd, I ran into State Senator Creigh Deeds, a man who just made an unsuccessful bid for State Attorney General, and started rambling hopelessly about legalizing marijuana. Then, my driver who accompanied me to the Allen event began to joke with Deeds about Allen’s Press Secretary’s high-maintenance fashion stylings. Deeds couldn’t resist teasing Allen: “He surrounds himself with gay men!” The Human Rights Committee and Alliance For Marriage kindly urge your participation in the upcoming referendum on a state constitutional amendment banning homosexual marriages and unions. Mahalo. GARDEN
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56 GARDEN
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Product Placement by Clay McLeod Chapman image : Jeff Smack Flip to page four of this morning’s paper and you’ll find a photo of my wife. Hadn’t planned on finding her there, myself. Didn’t expect to open up the early edition today and see her lying in the road all over again. But there she was -- sprawled out along the highway, just how the police found her the night before. Only now she’s bookended between ads for ladies’ lingerie and pain relievers. Instead of paramedics, she’s surrounded by women in their bras and panties. The ditch is lined in with clearance sales, as if she’d run her car into some department store instead -- these price tags folding over the fender, as fragile as the thickets growing along the road. Marked down by the bumper, slashed right in half. The picture had been taken right after the accident. Most people probably wouldn’t even recognize her, from the way she’s facing the camera. Her hair’s covering most of her face. But if you squint, if you strain your eyes hard enough, taking in every pixel -all those tiny dots of newsprint form into her face. Suddenly it’s Susan. Your ad is printed directly next to the windshield.
Nine out of ten doctors recommend Relieve more than any other brand of pain reliever sold in supermarkets today. For the temporary reprieve of headaches, backaches, and all the other aches and pains your body can muster -- choose relief. Choose Relieve. There’s this woman holding up a bottle to the camera, smiling -- acting as if your product was the answer to all her prayers. You can tell she’s not hurting anymore. She’s sitting next to Susan, as if they were friends posing for the same picture. There’s barely any border between the two photographs, the line dividing your ad from her picture blurring together. It’s funny. Take two completely opposing photos and place them right next to each other -- and suddenly, your eye will connect them together. Your mind turns them into one. I’m sitting in the kitchen this morning. The newspaper’s open, this article about my wife’s car accident right there in front of me. Only I can’t read it. I can’t take in the words. All I can do is look at the ads surrounding Susan, sticking with the pictures -- until I’m linking lingerie with skid marks, shattered glass with child-proof bottle caps. GARDEN
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And here’s this complete stranger, some actress I’ve never met before kneeling next to my wife -- telling me how I can stop hurting. The intimacy of the images has turned them into some sort of compare and contrast with one another. This is what you feel like before you take Relieve. And this is after... My wife’s become some spokesperson for your product. You’ve incorporated her accident into your ad campaign. You’re endorsing her death. She’s modeling for you, for Christ’s sake. Her back had snapped in half -- but pop two caplets every couple hours and the pain will just melt away. Up to eight hours of relief. Satisfaction guaranteed. You know what pain relievers really are? They’re chemical barricades, roadblocks between your brain and nerve-endings. Every time you stub your toe, studies show your body releases these chemicals that transmit pain signals all the way through your nervous system, informing the rest of yourself that you have to hurt now. Now it’s time to ache. But pop some ibuprofen and the injured cells can’t release that chemical anymore. It stops your body from sending the message, preventing you from feeling any pain. Doesn’t heal you. Doesn’t cure you at all. It just keeps you from feeling anything. Toothaches, muscle aches. Every ache your body can muster just washes away. So how about heartache? How many caplets would I have to swallow to stop myself from feeling the way I do now? How many bottles would I have to buy? Wasn’t until I opened this morning’s newspaper that I got to see her. I don’t even know where the wreck was, which part of the highway it happened on. But with that picture, it’s as if I’m there. I can be at the accident now. Seeing her on the road, surrounded by all of those women parading around in their half-priced panties -- it looks like she’s nothing more than some awkward model, posing with the rest of them. She must’ve tripped right before the shutter snapped. I’m pushing through the crowd, forcing my way past all the 58 GARDEN
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models in their underwear -- running up to Susan. Her face is pixilated now. It’s all grainy to me. I can’t see her so well. Her features are smudged from a misprint. The color tones are off by an inch, shifting tints from their proper spot. The color of her eyes is now on her cheek, the green deviating from her irises -- leaving the sockets all empty. There’s newspaper ink smeared all over my fingers, as if it were blood -- while the red has bled elsewhere. “Susan? Susan, can you hear me?” I want to hold her. I want to pick her up and take her home. I want to comb the hair out of her face and carry her back to the car. I want to brush the color of her eyes back into the right place, sweeping the green off her cheeks. “Susan, it’s me. I’m right here, honey. I’m with you now.” I look over to my side and I realize there’s this woman kneeling next to Susan in the road. She’s looking right at me, smiling. She holds this bottle up to my face, the caplets rattling inside -- saying, Use only as directed. I went straight to our medicine chest, sifting through the shaving cream and toothpaste until I found them. Each container holds a hundred caplets. Each caplet holds six hundred milligrams of that magic ingredient acetaminophen. Not to mention cornstarch, hydroxyethyl cellulose, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, magnesium stearate, microcrystalline cellulose, povidone, powdered cellulose, pregelatinized starch, sodium starch glycolate, titanium dioxide, triacetin. Which ingredient will relieve me? I popped the cap with my thumb and brought the bottle right up to my lips. Just tilted my neck back and began chewing. This rusty tasting paste overwhelmed my mouth, but I swallowed it all down. You should put me in one of your ads. Let me be a testament to pain relief. See how many I sell for you.
A Tr a
gic
L o ve
By Joe Roper
S t o r y About
HELL
Hell wasn’t particularly pleasant today. Alexander was used to a little burning flesh and snakes with barbs on each scale thrashing around in his now hollowed-out lungs. It was always difficult to breathe that way, but the air wasn’t worth breathing anyway. There was so much mold and allergens in the air you couldn’t see in front of you if there was any light to see with. All this was commonplace in hell, and after 213 years and 79 days, Alex was getting used to it. To some degree, he was starting to enjoy it. He was optimistic that his eternity, though woeful and painful, could turn out to be a valuable experience. But Hell wasn’t particularly pleasant today. It wasn’t his lungs or his blackened, boiling skin. It wasn’t the woodpecker chopping away at the part of his skull that was exposed. It was his heart. Unlike all the punishments, nothing was more punishing than the broken heart Alexander now had. This was all due to a lovely young fellow prisoner; a female who was sentenced to forever read and delete popup ads and spam mail from her email account while being digested in the stomach of a giant three-eared rabbit. Her name was Monica. She had just arrived, or perhaps Alexander just noticed her, four years ago. Alex was coughing up blood when he heard her muffled moan of frustration and physical pain. The cries sounded so sweet and soothing to the half of his ears remaining, that he crawled through the magma following her voice to the rabbit. After sitting against the belly of the rabbit and trying long and hard to speak to her, he found that nothing came out of his mouth save for bits of his lungs. So he proceeded to give the belly a few loud slaps. He was lucky enough to know Morse code and used it with his slaps in hopes that she knew Morse code as well. Even if she knew Morse code, she would have to interpret his pats as dots and full-handed slaps as dashes. At the time, 60 GARDEN
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she didn’t know Morse code, but she knew of it, and had the feeling that that was what she was hearing through the belly of her prison. And there just so happened to be an email advertising learning Morse code just after the seventy-nine thousand and eleventh email about enlarging her penis. Within the matter of a few hours, she comprehended, and began replying to Alexander’s messages. The three-eared rabbit, needless to say, was rather displeased by all this slapping, and ate Alexander and his woodpecker to stop his abuse. It was wonderful for Alexander, as this now put him right next to Monica. Although, the rabbit only bit off his upper body, leaving his legs and pelvis behind. Thus Alexander and Monica’s friendship began. They sat together in the stomach of the rabbit for years, talking of their sufferings, reminiscing the sins of their living years that brought those sufferings, and working hard to delete as many ads and spam emails as they could. Those were horrifically joyful years for Alexander. For once, he was not alone. Not even in life had he had much luck with women. The closest thing to committing a sin with a woman was when he and Sue kicked each other under the cafeteria table when he was twelve. After three years, he realized he was in love with his gastric chum. But he had no idea how to tell her. He agonized for a year over what to do about his feelings. It didn’t help that he still had to speak to her using Morse code, which still displeased the rabbit since he kept slapping the rabbit’s mucus-covered stomach walls. Finally, Alexander couldn’t stand it anymore. He had to tell her how he felt. He wanted so much to hold her and kiss her. After she paused and groaned from yet another popup filling her screen and not closing, he tapped her on the shoulder and waited until she turned to him. By the light of the screen that announced Monica a winner, Alexander could see Monica as she looked at him with her grey eyes, having part of the corneas burned out by acid. He looked into those eyes as he began to pat the walls, and she interpreted each letter out loud. Pat, pat. “I.” Pat, smack, pat, pat. “L.” Pat, pat, smack. “U.” Pat, pat, pat, smack. “V.” Pat, pat, smack. “U.”
“Iluvu? What’s that?” she asked. Unfortunately, Alexander had been lazy about properly spacing between words. He shook his head, and then began to use charades. He pointed to himself. “You.” Then cupped his two hands over his heart. “Love?” He nodded. Then he pointed at Monica. “Me?” He nodded. She frowned and pondered for a moment, pulling some of the hair off her head which had burned down to a lower layer of skin. Then she shook her head. “Do you mean that you’re in love with me?” He nodded. “No, Alex.” He looked at her shocked. He raised his hands and shrugged in a gesture of “Why?” She looked at him mournfully and said, “It couldn’t possibly work out. You don’t even have a pelvis. Besides, you’re boring. In fact, I’d like to be rid of you.” The rabbit’s three ears were keen and the rabbit understood that this was his cue to vomit up his breathless tenant with his ever-pecking bird. Alexander found himself back in the pool of magma next to his severed lower body, which kicked frantically in anger from his rejection as he cried and bled from his mouth. The woodpecker decided to peck out a message in Morse code. This was the first time that bird had any interest in communicating with Alexander. It took a few letters before Alexander realized the bird was trying to talk to him. After signaling for the bird to start again, he interpreted what the woodpecker was spelling out. N.I.C.E.L.Y. D.O.N.E. R.O.M.E.O. Alexander would have knocked the bird off for that sarcasm, but resisted lest he lose the only creature now with him. Alexander realized that nothing was more painful than experiencing something as heavenly as love only to end up lonely again. He decided to be sure that if he ever found another girl, he would try to be more exciting and make sure he had his pelvis with him.
Stay Home: Two Great Docs on TV by Tebby Blanks Most of the pic tures they’re put ting in the multiplexes this Fall won’t be wor th the tr ip. Some I know to avoid, but so f ar even the ones that spar ked my interest proved disappointing : DePalma’s Bl ack Dalia was exper tly constr uc ted, but too self- consciously cor ny to stomach, and 20 0 6’s “indie” hit Little Miss Sunshine is not half as funny or new as people think it is. Even so, this season has produced t wo great films, and both of them happen to be four-hour-long epic T V documentar ies.
Ric Bur ns’s And y War hol : A Documentar y Film is as bor ingly titled as any Bur ns brother af f air ( e.g. The Civil War ) , but nonetheless 62 GARDEN O F MAYHEM
has an endlessly c aptivating subjec t. Whatever you thought of War hol before seeing Documentar y , it will be hard to walk away from it not thinking he is the best and most impor tant ar tist of the second half of the 20 th centur y. This is Bur ns’s main contention, and he argues it thoroughly, l aunching a defense of War hol ’s ar twor k and persona-as-ar t wor k through inter views with a var iet y of ar tist s and cr itic s, and devoting l arge chunks of screen time to simply showing War hol ’s paintings and films. If nothing el se, Documentar y is a well- cur ated retrospec tive. I sat through all four hours when it pl ayed, for free, a few weeks ago at Film For um in New Yor k, and seeing the ear ly dr awings, the soup c ans, the silkscreens, the slowed down films — Sleep, Kiss, Haircut — blown up, projec ted, was awe-inspir ing. I’m not sure if the ef fec t will be lost on the small screen, but the combination of having a stead y eyeful of the most ar resting images of War hol ’s long, prolific c areer, and listening to his smar test admirers eloquently lose their shit over them should silence any non-believers. The ex tr aordinar y irony of Bur ns’s approach to the mater ial is that he is telling the stor y of one of the most unconventional men in histor y with the most conventional documentar y approach possible. E ar ly in the film, an inter viewee muses that though War hol had almost no talent for nar r ative in his wor k, his life pl ayed out like some great Amer ic an novel . Bur ns takes this idea and r uns with it, spinning War hol ’s life into a stor y arc of Behind the Music propor tions : the first half is the ar tist’s ear ly c areer and r ise to f ame, and the second half begins with a tr aumatic episode, a breakdown, and a safer, sober ing comeback. The contr ast bet ween the staid technique ( clip from archival film, photogr aph, voice-over from inter view ) and the d ynamic visual qualit y of Warhol ’s wor k somehow makes Documentar y fresher than if Bur ns had decided to take a more exper imental approach.
The soundtr ack is a rotation of ominous str ing music, instr umental stock rock, and ear ly Velvet Underground tr acks. The str ings make the film feel tensely oper atic, and at tach a sadness and theatr ic alit y to the War hol stor y I’m not sure would come through other wise. The ef fec t is dizz ying ; we feel strong emotion without any thing in par ticul ar to at tach it to. When the tension is broken with Lou Reed’s low, deadpan singing voice, we feel no manipul ative 6 0s nostalgia, only relief. But Bur ns c ame to make us take War hol ser iously, and the ser ious, bargain basement orchestr al score doesn’t hur t. Using psychedelia’s greatest hit s would have been obvious. B y treating the film’s music like he would The Civil War, he elevates the stor y of A nd y War hol to one of Great Amer ic an propor tions. For those alread y f amiliar with the War hol nar r ative, it is dishear tening to see Bur ns devote so much r unning time to the Fac tor y years, and to see the Valer ie Sol anas shooting used as a dr amatic climax and tur ning point in such an over t way. Bur ns does of fer a fresh look at War hol ’s ear ly c areer as a commercial ar tist, though, and provides an eager defense of his of tdismissed 7 0s and 8 0s c areer. Only t went y minutes is spent on those fif teen years, and, honestly, I could have used more. Viewing the l ate wor k, it becomes apparent that for bet ter or worse, as much as War hol was the 6 0s, his aesthetic al so defined the br ight colors and high contr ast of the pop-M T V- 8 0s. The film, in addition to it s chronologic al stor y telling and cr itic al approach to the ar t wor k, makes an admir able at tempt at penetr ating War hol ’s persona, pointing out the cr uelt y that his refusal to inter vene in the lives of those around him sometimes resulted in.
A s an achievement, And y War hol : A Documentar y Film is easily the best and most comprehensive film to date on the icon’s life and wor k, and per haps the first to treat him as reverently as much of the ar t communit y does. It goes fur ther, though, leaving the unshakable impression that not only did War hol ’s business model usher in a new er a for the ar t wor ld, his ideas about celebr it y and pop culture forever changed the way we see our wor ld.
For his new film, Spike Lee doesn’t have to stretch so f ar to convince us of the ser iousness and relevance of his subjec t. When The Levees Broke : A Requiem In Four Ac t s is an examination of Hur r ic ane Katr ina’s ef fec t on the people and spir it of New Or leans. Air ing about a year af ter the stor m hit, it’s a gr ave reminder that the cit y is still drowning in it s wake. Lee is smar ter with music than Bur ns — ac tually, that’s an understatement— Lee is one of our most intensely music al filmmakers, and his films GARDEN
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have always had an exciting, complex rel ationship with their own soundtr acks. He opens each “ac t ” of Levees with a dif ferent br ass band marching and pl aying through the emptied street s of New Or leans, and in one ac t the band is displ aced, marching through New Yor k Cit y. Terence Bl anchard, the New Or leans jazz musician, has scored sever al of Lee’s movies, including Malcolm X and Crooklyn , so his wor k on Levees is, in addition to being geogr aphic ally appropr iate, pl aces this film squarely in Lee’s oeuvre. The first thing you notice about Levees , as it begins with recreating the hours before and dur ing the stor m, is how the avail abilit y of high-qualit y digital c amcorders in our societ y aids in the cre ation of a movie like this. While watching a wide ar r ay of beautiful and distur bingly br utal stor m footage, the impor tance of editing in documentar y filmmaking becomes apparent. Lee most likely sif ted through countless hours of home videos that were given to him to find the shot s that most gr ab us with their force. Some reviewers of the film have expressed being pleasantly sur pr ised by Levees ’s l ack of didac tic, Michael Moore-ish nar r ation or any conspicuous Bush-bashing, but as a f an and follower of Lee’s wor k, I’ve never found him to be par ticul ar ly preachy or one-sided. He tackles subjec t s that, as a bl ack filmmaker, he finds impor tant, and he usually present s them in a complex, sometimes intentionally contr adic tor y way. In Levees , the most controversial thing he does is something ever yone repor ting on this event should have been doing the whole time : he let s the Katr ina vic tims and sur vivors express their sadness and anger in a direc t, nonsentimentalized way. Hear ing vic tim af ter vic tim talk about their exper iences in and af ter the hur r ic ane, we see that this event has absor bed them over the past year, that their minds are soaked with information about the tr aged y, that they understand each 64 GARDEN
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aspec t of the stor m and it s ef fec t s on their cit y bet ter than anyone. They talk, as convincingly as the engineers Lee inter views, about the problems with the levees, and as convincingly as the politicians about money and power and it’s role in the gover nment reac tion to the stor m. Lee utilizes hundreds of inter views, makes clever jux tapositions, and, as always, occ asionally let s people just r ant at the c amer a. We hear Har r y Bel afonte talk about “ the ar rogance of power ” and the public view of 9 th Ward resident s as “socially, r acially of no impor tance.” We hear a r ich Or leans couple’s “Oh the Irony ! ” mo ment as they first heard the news of the hur r ic ane dur ing their tr ip abroad, tour ing the r uins of another great destroyed cit y, Pompeii. We hear Sean Penn br ag about c ar r ying people to safet y, and it’s funny, but maybe a lit tle distr ac ting.
Levees is unflinching in it s expression of genuine personal tr aged y. At first, ever y stor y is deeply moving, but it c an have a numbing ef fec t. If Bur n’s War hol wor ks in one four-hour sit ting, Lee’s Levees is probably only digestible in it s four par t s, bec ause in a str aight viewing, one begins to feel guiltily masochistic. Lee closes the film by showing us the ad vanced levee systems of the Nether l ands, a refreshingly apolitic al plea for some kind of measure to be taken to ensure that this kind of preventable tr aged y, the excessively deadly af ter math of a stor m, doesn’t happen to our countr y, or any of our great cities, ever again. Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke is avail able on HBO on Demand, and And y War hol : A Documentar y Film airs on PB S throughout this f all .
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by Rebecca D’Angelo In May I posted an ad on Craigslist.com in New Orleans saying “Photographer Seeking to Volunteer.” I was hoping there was a group that I could volunteer for taking photos in exchange for a place to stay that had electricity and Internet. Several people contacted me, including Myra Spence, founder of Do Your Part. She expressed a great concern that New Orleans had been forgotten and the press had stopped covering it. She told me about the many suicides that were happening in Bernard’s Parish, which butts up against the 9th ward and was completely demolished. Most of the hardworking, blue collar, lower middle class citizens were either gone or living in trailers with no work or transportation. She painted a ver y bleak picture. What she wanted of me was to just go and see what I saw. She gave me a place to stay with a guy named Juan, who had volunteered for 8 months and now had to get a real job as he was out of money. She also connected me to Cor y Richardson, who was part of Emergency Communities, but also had his own non-profit, called Action Hero Network. 68 GARDEN
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I arrived on June 16th, just as Emergency Communities was breaking up their site… Bernard’s Parish now had a Wal-Mart and three businesses open and asked EC to leave as they felt the free supplies would compete with the these businesses. I was told by one woman in a FEMA trailer that she didn’t have any money, so how was she supposed to shop and where was she going to get diapers now. Most of the camp was going to use this opportunity to go to the Rainbow Gathering, but had started to set up shop in a school with Habitat for Humanity and Americorp. It is called Camp Hope and is in Violet, LA, not far from Bernard’s Parish. I was only there for seven days, but by the third day it felt like 30. Most of my days were spent serendipitously and I think I saw the entire city. 72 GARDEN
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I met up with many different groups of volunteers. I hope to go back and tighten up my essay by focusing on Emergency Communities who inspired me in such a way that has had a profound effect on my life. A good percentage of them had been there for ten months at that point. They were the free spirits who believe that community and love will make the world a better place. They owned nothing and having owned nothing are able to give ever ything. No mortgages, no “careers” to tie them down. One day I followed a group of high school students from Georgetown Day School who were volunteering for Habitat for Humanity gutting houses. Only the houses that the people decided to rebuild were being gutted. The rest would ultimately be bull dozed. We were in Bernard’s
DoYourPart.org Commongroundrelief.org Actionheronetwork.org Emergencycommunities.org Camphopeonline.com
Parish working on areas on Easy Street and Prosperity Street. This neighborhood was a gem in the 50s and home to many WWII vets. It, like so much of New Orleans, felt like a total ghost town. It was hotter than hell and there was a smell of mustiness. Ever y house the same – vacant – with messages and the X symbolizing if inhabitants were dead or alive. I left the kids for awhile to walk down these streets with the Pleasantville names and ever y fiber and cell of my being wanted to, needed to, break down and crumble into tears. I let my body down to the ground and just kneeled and sucked in a few deep breaths, pushing the tears away, or back further down.
Ultimately what truly connected me to New Orleans and the deep emotions in me was Juan’s dog, named Pee Wee. The most fantastic, lovable, tiny mutt of a dog that got so excited to see you he would tinkle. I fell in love with him and with his stor y. He was a hurricane rescue dog and he finally had found a home two months prior with my generous host. I kept picturing his Dumbo ears flying in the wind and floating on a piece of wood and the terror he must have felt. It was one morning after he’d curled into me that I burst into tears and attached to what I was experiencing.
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74 Goodbye Santino.
Rebecca Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Angelo is a freelance editorial and portrait photographer whose clients include the Washington Post, Time Magazine, NY Post. You can view more of her work at rebeccadangelo.com and on myspace.com/evolveagain.
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THE NANCI R AYGUN IMAGE : IAN GR AHAM
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