Tag: sky thing

here at pan y rosas – we look to the future (or run late, depending on yr perspective). so instead of an end of year best of list. we do a pre-emptive best of list. a list of things that we are looking forward to for the coming year. next up, john collins mccormick drops his annotated list!

Justin Clifford Rhody – While he may have put down the reins of Friends and Relatives Records, he’s moved to Oakland CA and is putting all his efforts into his personal photography, xerography (and let’s hope) some new records. His first photo book “Sliding Glass Door” was released via Bathetic Records last year and surmised his photographic output thus far. Many of the images in the book came from his extensive slide show tours and gallery shows. Justin’s color photographs are wonderfully composed views of America and Central America that make me feel landscape and understand people and places I’ll more than likely never see.

He is currently hosting a series of slide shows in the Bay Area entitled “Vernacular Visions”, which are comprised of found 35mm slides and accompanied by musical mixes of new and old records he’s collecting while manning the desk at the Berkley Amoeba record store.

A new issue of his xerography zine “SLO-MO Illustrated” is in the works. (I think this will put the series at issue 6 or 7)… SLO-MO is a curated photocopy record of found images and objects. These folded and stapled books play out a form of visual poetry in your hands where loose associations of other peoples needs, wants and desires mix up the way you walk around your neighborhood.
A new website is in the works, until then, www.justincliffordrhody.blogspot.com

Erin K Drew – Erin helped coerce and convince me to move to Indianapolis to attend Herron School of Art and Design, only to immediately move to Bloomington. Thanks.

While seeing her painting show “Ruiner” (a collection of murals based on her memory and love for Nine Inch Nails) at Indianapolis’ General Public Collective (see below) she informed me she’d be back at Herron completing her degree this spring. Full Circle.

Erin’s art is part signage, part illustration. Serious fun. It’s contemplative and light-hearted. Erin moves between media, 2-D, 3-D, 4-D(?) with classy sarcastic wit. She’s greatly inspired by text of all kinds, especially those popping up in unlikely places. All this and more is well documented at http://extremeappearances.blogspot.com/

General Public Collective – The GPC is a new storefront gallery/zine/clothing/idea/store in the historic Fountain Square Neighborhood of Indianapolis. Run by a group of highly motivated like-minded individuals, they’re working hard to bring the creative and avant-garde to street level. Whatever your into, they’ve probably found someone else on the globe either writing, drawing, singing or taking pictures of/about it. They host monthly (?) art shows, poetry readings and musical performances. Calvin Johnson graced the soft opening… Rad. http://general-public.us/ 1060 Virginia Ave. Indianapolis, 46203

Christopher Janke – My friend Patrick Lamothe gave me Janke’s first book “Structure of the Embryonic Rat Brain” about five years ago and I read it several times every year. It’s oddly surreal and honest and banal and fucked up and really logical all at once. It feels good in your hands and head. According to his web site he is working on a poetry-sculpture titled “of the of of the of” merging words with objects and spaces. Maybe this project has been finished? There are images of this large-scale poetry-sculpture installation too. After the beautiful head-fuck that is “Rat Brain” I can’t fathom how amazing this project will be. Also, he runs a Laundromat in Turner Falls, MA where he hosts a yearly fashion show of lost and found clothing. Let’s hope 2014 will provide the opportunity to interact with his poem sculptures, maybe take a long trip to “do the whites.”
www.christopherjanke.com

Adam Meyer – Adam is a new father, running his design biz COYA, the drone-experimental cassette label Sacred Phrases, and curating SOUND SERIES at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. I can’t express how awesome it is that Adam and the FWMoA are getting this series of experimental music and sound art together. Having grown up in Fort Wayne, been a noise-head, having worked at the museum AND getting to know Adam through his work as Dry Valleys, a painter, designer and friend, I can say this can only be a great thing. Expect more rad releases from Sacred Phrases, a new installment of the TRANSCRIPTION mix tape series, new releases from his solo project Dry Valleys, as well as visual art projects.
www.sacredphrases.com

Charles Free AKA The Savage Young Taterbug and Tracey Trance – I finally had the chance the share the stage (basement floor) with Taterbug. As always, it was great to burn and ‘burp a few with Tracey. JCR turned me on to Taterbug and Tracey Trance a few years back, having released their albums on the F&R. Needless to say I was excited to finally do the damn thing with these boys.

If you aren’t familiar with The Savage Young Taterbug, he wonderfully ranges from noisey electronic collage to pop-ish tunes about drinking and living life. A full length Charles Free record should be available any day now from Night People. http://raccoo-oo-oon.org/np/ (also looks like you could get his most recent tour tape, too.)

Tracey Trance’s output is incredible and runs the gamut from Buddy Holly like jams about fishing to banjo tunes on the joys of beer at breakfast to organ driven hammock music. Grab a copy of “Pyper Kub” on vinyl from Faux Pas (www.fauxpasrecs.blogspot.com). (But seriously, any tape label you’re into has probably released a Tracey Trance album (or two.)) These two just jammed America together, let’s hope we can catch them at “the breakfast spot” again in 2014.

HEN – Hen is Lisa Berlin and Tender (Aimee) Evans. Hen is kind of hard to describe. Let me first say they make me feel thrilled to live in Indianapolis. Wait. They make me feel thrilled to live. It’s equal parts songwriting, choreographed dance moves, costumes, pageantry, all Pro-You. Their performances range from twee-inspirational songs, full on feminism, cheerleading, sarcastic feminism, DIY and die backing tracks, boys, misfits (real ones) and audience participation. If you leave a HEN performance without grinning, wanting, helping and humming you need to get your head checked.
www.musicalfamilytree.com/band/hen

Peter Shear – Midwest kindred spirit in abstraction, Peter Shear had an amazing 2013. His paintings were featured in New American Painting (that’s right) as well as exhibitions in Europe and America. Peter’s paintings have a beguiling tenderness I often find lacking in abstraction. With unrelenting fascination of surface texture and tension, his gestural paintings are a language of his own. I’m anxious to check out his upcoming solo show in Bloomington, IN, SLOW JAM next month. He once said to me “I like my paintings to be about the size of your head,” constantly confusing and delightful. I can’t imagine him letting off the gas in the coming year.
www.petershear.com

Pilgrim Talk, Nick Hoffman – Nick’s output is ridiculous. It’s quite varied while staying deep in experimental composition and noise. He works with different material solo and in collaborations. His back catalog is quite lengthy, and if he didn’t do such a good job documenting it, would be confusing to keep track of. Katchmere, Vey You, Back Magic, Nick Hoffman (Solo and Ensemble) all serve different stylistic ends, or are they just ways of keeping track of time? Hard to tell in these largely enigmatic sounds.

His macabre/metal-influenced illustrations are outrageously great, and painstakingly grace the cover art for releases on his label Pilgrim Talk, (as well as his zines and comics.) All of the releases I’ve heard are refined documents of complicated thoughts that powerfully communicate non-gesture, affectless notions and challenging nothings. More Boulez than Cage, Hoffman may be doing the devils work, but his pitchfork is made of crayons, and the séance creates confusion and cacophony, fearless fun in the face of this weird world…

Sound as a Material in the Fine Arts – A shameless plug, but hey I’m pre-emptively excited about this. I’ll finish my Master of Fine Arts degree in May 2014 in the Sculpture Department of Herron School of Art and Design, focusing on Sound Art. It’s been a weird, bumpy, humbling, fucked, fun, joyful ride forcing sound where it doesn’t belong to people who don’t want to deal with it. And I’m very pleased to say my syllabus for an undergraduate class has been pre-approved for a special topics class covering this thesis work “Sound as a Material in the Fine Arts.”

“THERE IS SO MUCH” – Too much to go into detail that I’m pre-emptively stoked on. Here’s the short list:

• Teenage Teardrops website saying for months now “Coming soon Brendan Fowler LP.”
• Anything Bryan Day is going to do with Public Eyesore/Eh? – Solo and with Seeded Plain.
• Speaking of Seeded Plain, Jay Kreimer will wrap up his Fullbright Scholar work in India documenting funeral procession bands, and I want to drive to Lincoln, NE and bug him and Wendy Weiss this summer.
• I hope I run into Lee Bender sometime soon.
• Deciding whether or not this shit’s called Sky Thing anymore.
• A new Burnt Ones record and tour.
• Watching all the Dotolim videos on Youtube and dreaming of going to South Korea.
• Catching more Lampo shows at the Graham Foundation in Chicago.
• Spring: and riding my bike and skateboarding hanging out with You.

Sincerely,
John Collins McCormick
Indianapolis, 1/24/14