So, tour ended in New York. Todd P set up our last show, and it was the biggest show he had done so far and the biggest of our tour. 1500 people came out to see Ecstatic Sunshine, High Places, Panther, Marnie Stern, BARR and Lightning Bolt. It was my birthday and the team (band) and Andrea Longacre-White through the craziest birthday surprise ever for me... I'm trying to find a photo so I'm going to post about that tomorrow (and remember how I still never posted photos of the Pistol, that epic place in Kansas city? Ruling blog delay/defference)
But this post is really meant as Kevin Shea, BARR drummer's theoretical guest post, I think this is what he would post:

This is me in my special nest that I made in in the most fucked up damaged/deconstructed/destroyed Comfort Inn ever in the history of the world near O'Hare airport outside of Chicago, that fully was so crazy damp and where we stayed for three nights and where Brendan lent me his way too tight pants when the dryer wouldn't dry mine in time for dinner with Dan Koretzky (he is such a nice guy!) on our night off because the dryer didn't spin, it just baked shit and almost caught on fire. The police are fully my favorite band of all time. Stuart Copeland is my favorite drummer and person of all time. In august I am going to go see their sold-out reunion show at Madison Square Garden and I am fully tripping out about it, and I don't actually talk like Brendan trying to talk like me, but I did just learn html so please check out my myspace profile to see how awesome it just got.

Grease and Glamour

The other night, Susan Cianciolo had her latest clothing presentation at Choke Motorcycle Shop in Silverlake.

The entire space was decorated with clothing, photographs, drawings and they screened a film called 1960's Butterfly Girl in the backyard. The film was a psychedelic montage of images and Susan's clothes with a soundtrack by NO AGE. It was one of those events that made you feel good about creativity, fashion, music, just all of it.


These were stuck all over a door. They are photos from Susan's last presentation in NYC (I think).
Whatever it was, it looked cool as hell.

Susan Cianciolo, the woman of honor.

Todd Cole, photographer extrordianire, who shot stills on the film set.

This is one of Todd's shots of Frankie Rayder in a scene from the film.

Jeff, the owner/mechanic/visionary behind Choke. This dude makes a mean cappuccino!

Bones & Noses

Last night I reluctantly venured into LA's fashion week to go see Tara Subkoff's Imitation of Christ show. When I arrived at the place and saw the scene I almost turned around and walked out, but I hung on and now I'm happy I did. The show was held in this big tent filled with lots of "fashion types" trying to act super serious about what was going on. The first thing I noticed was that the catwalk was scattered with human and animal bones. I immediately smiled...I knew this was gonna be funny.

The comedy continued when the show started and the first models walked out...well, walked is maybe not the right word. Limped out is more apt. Yes, the models were all limping! Not only that, but they all had big noses and zits. It was awesome! It reminded me of some kind of goth vaudville show or something. I was cracking up the whole time. What's even funnier though is that as I looked around the room at one point and realized that I was the only one laughing! The whole crowd was still incredibly stern faced and serious. To Tara's credit, the clothes were really quite beautiful and showed a lot of thought and attention to detail. The show delivered on all fronts. Fashion has become so banana-republican in recent years, I'm so happy someone still gets the joke.

we played chicago and then had a night off... so as reward for such hard work, we got Corey's bass its own bed. (it is revealing, I think, in tour photos to see what people have around them, in their personal spaces... for example, a new bag of socks and an old hoodie... sometimes it feels like new socks and an old hoodie is all you have)



and then we got this new guy, Bandit.

...when Marnie came back we took to the road....

it was rainy, but we made it to the northwest...



Marnie was in a special bundle when she arrived, it helped us to navigate the rain.
The northwest was triumphant, Idaho was major and then... you know, we made it to the most amazing venue ever which is in Kansas City... there are photos to come from this... how irritating is it when people say, "the photos will be in the next blog posting"? I guess some people might like it and some people might get irritated... I'm sorry
Hope everyone is rad!
love
B

Look What's New on La Brea

Mike Mills brought it.

Corita Mania!!

A bunch of us headed over to the Immaculate Heart yesterday for a book release and film screening for Sister Corita. A new book on her work called "Come Alive" just got released so they had an event at AFI (next to the Corita Center) to celebrate. If you buy one book this year, I suggest this be it.

The woman at the podium is Julie Ault, who wrote the book. The guy to her right Baylis Glascock. He made the amazing documentary film about Corita and her teaching methods. The film was shot in 1965 or something and was like some strange fusion between Ed Ruscha and Jean Luc Godard. (Images below are from his film)




After the film screening a bunch of people who knew Corita talked about her life and I have to say I was brought to tears at one point. It was an inspiring way to spend a Sunday.

My Brush Runneth Dry....

I spent the day in Alexis Ross' garage watching him paint signs for the Tempt One art benefit show tomorrow night in Culver City. For those of you who don't know, Tempt is an LA graffiti writer who was struck with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), a rare muscuslar disease that has left him paralyzed. Over 50 artists have contributed work. All the proceeds from the sale will go to his family to help care for him. If you're in the area stop by. It's a good cause. Saturday, March 10th, 8553 Washington Ave. Culver City, CA 90232.

so, I have been on tour, and we got so sick!
the team is BARR as a band, with Marnie Stern, who is an epic shredding solo avant guitar songwriter.
She is epic.
But she got so sick (the above photo is of her after her emergency room visit with Corey, the bass player in BARR) and then gave it to the BARR band, and then flew home for a week.
But she recuperated and flew back to meet us in LA.
We got better, too.
The tour troops on...
sorry for delays...
love
Brendan
...the rest of tour...
March 2007
8 - Olympia, WA @ Le Voyeur - w/ Marnie Stern
9 - Seattle, WA @ Atlas Clothing - w/ Marnie Stern
10 - Portland, OR @ Rotture - w/ Marnie Stern
11 - Boise, ID @ House Party - w/ Marnie Stern
12 - Boise, ID @ the SUB at Boise State University - w/ Marnie Stern
13 - Denver, CO @ Rhinoceropolis - w/ Marnie Stern
14 - Lincoln, NE @ Chatterbox
15 - St Louis, MO @ Lemp Arts Space
16 - Kansas City, MO @ The Pistol
17 - Chicago, IL @ Beat Kitchen - w/ Casiotone For the Painfully Alone
20 - Detroit, MI @ Scrummage University - w/ Marnie Stern
21 - Rochester, NY @ AV Space - w/ Marnie Stern
22 - North Adams, MA @ Contemporary Artists Center - w/ Marnie Stern
23 - Providence, RI @ AS220 - w/ Marnie Stern
24 - Brooklyn, NY @ Third Ward - w/ Lightning Bolt, Marnie Stern, Ecstatic

Went to Australia. Quite nice I must say.

Lurked in the streets of Sydney taking pictures and checking out bookstores. My Camera broke and I had to search the cities' camera shops for a film camera, no easy task in this digital age. Found a cheap Canon. I was there to take part in a group show with my lovely wife Deanna, Jim Houser, and Aussie D-Mote. It was at the Monster Children Gallery.

Houser was in fine form, somehow matching his palette of colours.

Then I went down to Melbourne for some skateboarding but got injured (knee & ankle simultaneously) within an hour of arrival. That sucked pretty bad, but gave me another week of 'vacation' time, looking at bookstores, galleries and museums.

Oh yeah, in Sydney, I rented a car and drove (on the other side of the road for the first time!) to a nature park. It was 800 times better than going to a zoo. We saw this Cassowary 'the disemboweling bird.' These guys have a mean temper, and a real long sharp middle claw that is perfect for ripping your gut open... enjoy.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses

I got an email from Barry McGee yesterday telling me to check out Bill Daniel's work at this art show caled the Elk Gallery at The Regency. As I scrolled down it became clear that this show was not actually in a gallery, but in some sort of abandoned space in Hollywood. The directions on the invite read as follows:

"Climb over the fence and proceed south along the side of the building until you come to a chair on your left. Use the chair to climb over the wall and then go straight ahead into the Regency. Please be advised that by attending the exhibition you will be trespassing and thereby are subject to the possible consequences of breaking the law. If you see a security guard upon approaching The Regency do not attempt to enter. If any neighbors are around walk by and return when they are gone. Also keep in mind that you will have to climb two five-foot high walls and that sensible shoes are recommended due to debris and other obstacles in the rooms. Another consideration is exposure to asbestos."

With an invitation like that...how could I refuse??



It turns out that The Regency is actually a busted old derelict apartment complex in a fairly nice part of Hollywood that has been taken over by pool skaters and squat kids. The people from Elk Gallery decided to take it over for the day for this art show. Instalations were scattered throughout all these different trashed out apartments. When we arrived, the scene looked like something from a Penelope Spheeris film.



Some of the kids built this giant man sculpture. His arms that stuck out like trees from the pool area and a big face was stuck on the side of the wall across the courtyard. You could only put the elements together from from one particular part of the building.



Dan Monick was there cooking a tasty Sunday brunch.



This is Bill Daniel's installation. It literally blew the roof off the place.

Welcome to Now

In keeping with this new "art about town" trend we seem to be experiencing...yesterday we went to see Robert Wilson's portrait show at Ace Gallery on Wilshire. If you've never heard of Wilson, he's an experimental performance artist and stage director who really came up in the 1970's and 1980's, but continues to do amazing stuff...and if you've never been to Ace, it's this massive space full of what seem to be endless rooms of art. A cocktail I couldn't refuse.



The portraits are actually done on video, where the subjects had to sit still for thirty minutes or more, so you notice little movements if you stare for a while and they're shown on these big flat-screen tv's that are hung on the wall like paintings. There are probably like 50 of these things in the show, with all different kinds of images. Some of my faves were the animal portraits like the porkupine, but there are also portraits of actors like Steve Buschemi, Winona Ryder and maybe my favorite one in the show, Isabella Rosellini (above). Believe it or not, these aren't that cheesy.



This dog face is like 10 feet tall and it's just sitting there panting with spit dripping off its mouth. It's worth seeing the show just for this guy.



Once fully inspired we made the trek over to The Smell to check out No Age and Barr. After a cross-country tour, this was Brendan Fowler's triumphant return to LA, and the first time he's played with his new "full band" lineup.



No Age brought the house down. They just keep getting better and better.



The NEW and IMPROVED look and sound of BARR.

Superstition Means Butterflies Forever

Yesterday me and Aimee took the westside trek and went to see the new Damien Hirst exhibition at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but upon entering the gallery my mind was immediately blown. At first the works looked like big stained glass windows, but upon closer inspection it became clear that every piece in the show was created using thousands and thousands of butterfly wings!



The stuff on the walls downstairs was already amazing. Big black gothic frames with colorful psychedelic mandalas inside, but Mr. Hirst saved the real bangers for the little gallery upstairs (we snuck these photos up there). If you are in the LA area, if you do nothing else, go see this show. It will both floor you and send you back to school. By the way...we asked about the prices and the works start at $900,000 and go to $2,000,000 each...all sold out of course. Yikes.

Gagosian Gallery, 456 North Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210 Phone:(310) 271-9400