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February picks for 92.9 and 96.9 WEHM New Release Tuesdays (airing every Tuesday from 9-10pm) all synthesize modern and vintage sounds into something quite original.

Veteran alternative rockers Nada Surf return with the album The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy and the track “Waiting for Something.” The lyrics are introspective and the melody is soft and wistful but there is an undeniably propulsive rock backbeat.

Up-and-coming singer/songwriter Lana Del Rey has just released her second album Born to Die, which contains her first single “Video Games.” The song features a dark and cinematic orchestral backing track and smoky, world-weary vocals as she contemplates lost love.

Indie rocker Craig Finn, frontman of The Hold Steady, goes solo with Clear Heart Full Eyes and the tune “Honolulu Blues.” His is an assertive, wry vocal delivery, which is complemented by a basic, powerful rock oomph quite reminiscent of power pop pioneers Big Star.

Hearing is Believing
the PULSE iTunes store is now open!
Click on our iTunes store to test drive these albums and more. If you like what you hear, you can purchase right there! Film playlists and other music is also available. Ever wonder how PULSE people handle the late nights? Take a listen to our Deadline Playlist and find out! lipulse.com and iTunes—we’re here for your listening pleasure.

Members of supergroup SuperHeavy and two Marley brothers

SuperHeavy
SuperHeavy
(Universal Republic)

Supergroups like Blind Faith, the Traveling Wilburys and even Power Station allowed marquee musicians to explore new musical ideas, partake in a busman’s holiday or even possibly create something of lasting value. It’s hard to say what will be the legacy of this supergroup, consisting of Mick Jagger, Joss Stone, Dave Stewart, Damian Marley and A.R. Rahman. With a decidedly slick power reggae sound, and a Black and Blue-era Rolling Stones vibe in spots, this cd comes across with a real group feel, considering all the artists involved, and it only occasionally veers off into a solo-track detour. Heavy, often super and full of music one would love to hear played live, it lives up to its all-star billing.

Joss Stone
LP 1 (Stone’d/Surfdog)

Joss Stone is another artist whose fierce drive for personal musical independence caused her to flee a major record label so she could make music on her own terms. The English soul phenomenon continues to make gritty r&b with an authenticity beyond her years. With the co-production assistance of her SuperHeavy bandmate Dave Stewart, on this new release, she is even tougher and bolder than ever before.

Dave Stewart
The Blackbird Diaries
(Razor & Tie)

Dave Stewart, former Eurythmics member and record producer, also made solo albums for the past 20 years and this one may be his best yet. Both a meditation on love and a look back on his formative musical years, the album opens with some very Keith Richards-sounding guitar. Stewart also salutes the blues and other rootsy influences. There’s even a song co-written with Bob Dylan and duets with the likes of Stevie Nicks and Colbie Caillat.

Ziggy Marley
Wild and Free (Tuff Gong)

With help from producer Don Was, Ziggy Marley again makes a reggae album even non-reggae fans will love. While in no way watering down his sound or forgetting to honor the legacy of dad Bob, Marley makes joyous reggae that’s fun and reminiscent of a trip to Jamaica. Marley consistently carries the torch of his father in bringing reggae to the world, but he is now getting some solid support from the blossoming careers of brothers Damian and Stephen.

Stephen Marley
Revelation Pt. 1: The Root of Life
(Tuff Gong/Universal/Republic) 

While Ziggy is enjoying himself making rootsy and accessible party reggae for the world, brother Stephen, just as musically accessible as his brothers, made a true concept album of serious intent. His second full-length studio album is a historical journey to the heart of Africa. Marley’s ambitious concept seeks to place African culture in its proper context as a cradle of civilization in thought, science and the evolution of the planet.

Hearing is Believing
the PULSE iTunes store is now open!
Click on our iTunes store to test drive these albums and more. If you like what you hear, you can purchase right there! Film playlists and other music is also available. Ever wonder how PULSE people handle the late nights? Take a listen to our Deadline Playlist and find out! lipulse.com and iTunes—we’re here for your listening pleasure.

Because in Love
words by nadA
photograph by lynn spinnato

because in love
you have to believe in more than just memories

fingers locked
and toes to toes
knee between knee between
knee between knee
bodies bridge beyond time
to a song

a quiet glance of young days
lazy afternoon dreams
a candle
the beautiful
melancholy of a saxophone

it is the sparkle of a smile
that promises poetry
and exotic places
words, like “yes” (oh yes!)
a reach across white linens
in deep midnight sleep

in love you believe
in the miniscule gestures
infinite details
and accidental heartbreaks—
a missed call, a letter lost—

in love
you have to believe in the future.

While Visual Heritage III: 4 Contemporary Artists comprises the work of four African American artists in celebration of Black History Month, it is also, paradoxically, a show about artists who transcend the “black artist” label.

Now in its third year, the Visual Heritage exhibition has officially become an annual event at the Southampton Cultural Center’s Levitas Center for the Arts. Arlene Bujese, curator of all three installments, is well acquainted with the complexities of mounting such a show. “Art should stand on its own as art,” Bujese said, though she also acknowledged the importance of celebrating Black History Month.

This year’s lineup of artists includes abstractionists Frank Wimberley, Nanette Carter, Danny Simmons and Sheila Batiste. “None of them really has work that makes it black art,” Bujese said. “That’s the thing.” The curator pointed out that the four artists have very different work from one another, and the varied styles make for an excellent show. All four artists also have connections to the East End. “I tried to keep it as local as possible,” Bujese said, noting that Wimberley is a part time resident of Sag Harbor, Carter is a frequent visitor and Batiste lives full time in the former whaling port.  Simmons stays with his brother Russell in East Hampton nearly every weekend.

An abstract expressionist painter known for his rich acrylic canvasses with heavy impasto and strong, deliberate strokes, Wimberley, 85, is displaying five pigment-prints with unique collage and paint applications. The prints are taken from the painter’s collage work and photographs of two found-object assemblages, “Drums of Ignacio Berroa” and “Homage to James Baldwin,” which will also be on view. The latter piece, honoring the author of Notes of a Native Son, is a simple, yet striking composition using battered raw-metal car parts, rusting on the edges, aluminum scraps painted white and a stenciled Baldwin quote along the bottom. The focus on Baldwin makes it Wimberley’s only work in the show to deliberately speak about black people or issues. “That’s about as political as I get,” the artist said, adding, “I try to be an American artist first and foremost.”

Carter, a longtime friend and colleague of Wimberley, said her series of abstract floral bouquets are about the decay of modern culture, while also paying tribute to her late mentor and friend Alvin Loving, a prolific American artist who died at 70 years old in 2005. “Civility is waning,” she said, questioning what is supposed to be entertainment in America. “I never thought I’d see women on TV beating each other up.” Carter calls her work a “gesture of a loving offering” in an age when it’s really needed.

The bouquets are constructed of Mylar scraps, layered and painted with oils and graphite, with a palette of black, yellow, green and blue. None of the shapes in Carter’s work represent real flora, and they more closely resemble coral, sponges and anemones, than roses or violets. The overall shapes follow contours similar to tribal masks.

Simmons, who has shown with Carter for many years, commented that there was once a need to exhibit black artists, when the galleries were more segregated, but the art world is more homogenous today. “I’m not a big fan of Black History Month shows,” Simmons said. On the other hand, “The opportunity to show with these great artists is amazing.”

The 58-year-old artist and gallerist is well known for his abstract paintings. For Visual Heritage, Simmons is displaying 12 works, including a series of “bark paintings” and several monoprints. “I’m sort of in a transitional period right now,” he said, explaining the new pieces. The bark paintings are on a scarce and difficult-to-acquire tree bark collected by Pygmy people in the Congo. “It is a little more tribal than the abstract work I was showing,” Simmons said of the rough-hewn bark pieces, which are covered in invented glyphs, reminiscent of indigenous tribal markings.

Simmons said the marks reference tribal spiritual symbols, and that the abstract and the spiritual go hand-in-hand. As soon as he began working on it, the artist felt a connection to the bark and it took his painting to a transcendental place. “It’s really strange and wonderful. It seems like it has magical properties,” Simmons said of his new medium.

While the bark paintings are clearly connected to Africa, Sheila Batiste, an art teacher in the East Hampton School District has included the only work that directly speaks about the experiences of black people in America. Like her counterparts in the show, Batiste said she is an artist before she is a female or black artist, but she acknowledged that her ethnicity could be evident in the work. “It reflects my experiences, which would be very unique to someone who is black,” she said.

Batiste is showing wire sculptures she calls “wire drawings,” based on previous two-dimensional work in various media. The wires twist together and climb up from the floor in thin metal spires. Batiste then returns to two-dimensional media and traces the shadows cast by each sculpture. Also included is a tabletop book from her show, What’s Gold About the Gold in Goldsboro, which chronicles Batiste’s time growing up in North Carolina during the Civil Rights movement.

Visual Heritage III: 4 Contemporary American Artists is showing through February 29. A reception is planned for Saturday, February 4 from 4-6pm. Danny Simmons will read poetry and sign his new book Deep in Your Best Reflection at 2:30pm and curator Arlene Bujese will give a gallery talk.

Southampton Cultural Center is located at 25 Pond Lane in Southampton. For more info, visit southamptonculturalcenter.org or call (631) 287-4377.

Tonic for Winter

The Hamptons art scene typically falls into a quiet slumber after the holiday season, but Tonic Artspace, a pop-up gallery in Bridgehampton, won’t sleep ‘til it’s dead. For the months of January and February, curator and artist Grant Haffner has taken the reins at Kathryn Markel Fine Art, where he is displaying original work, artist merchandise and limited edition prints by a diverse and rotating selection of emerging East End artists, including Carly Haffner, Scott Gibbons, Maeve D’Arcy, Ingrid Silva and Bruce Milne, among others. A founder of youthful and contemporary East End art collective Bonac Tonic, Haffner is known for his exciting and well-attended group shows. Tonic Artspace is the next step in this scene-maker’s evolution. The physical gallery will pop up at various locations throughout the year, while maintaining a permanent web presence and storefront at haffnervision.com.

Tonic Artspace, 2418 Montauk Hwy. (Main Street), Bridgehampton. (631) 613-6386, haffnervision.com.

Art of the Brick

Five recent works by famed LEGO® artist Nathan Sawaya are on display in the Nassau County Museum of Art’s Contemporary Gallery through March 18. The compelling figurative pieces, made solely of plastic toy building bricks, push LEGO® beyond child’s play and into the realm of serious artistic expression. Through his large-scale sculptures in Nathan Sawaya: Recent Works, Sawaya explores themes of identity and working within the “self-imposed prison” of his unconventional medium. The Manhattan-based artist, a former attorney, keeps 1.5 million plastic bricks in his studio at all times, and he builds commissions for private and corporate clients around the world. Inspired by Sawaya’s work, the museum is hosting Show Us Your LEGOS®, an event where young LEGO® artists are encouraged to bring in their own constructions and show them from 11am-2pm on Saturday, Feb. 4.

Nassau County Museum of Art, 1 Museum Drive,
Roslyn Harbor. (516) 484-9338, nassaumuseum.org, brickartist.com.

With the generative power of a two-headed vortex, Mary Lamont and Jim Marchese have carved out distinctive and continually expanding paths in the areas of music, photography and media. They also have harnessed the mythical and often maligned power of love. “We have been married forever,” is how Mary described their implicit trust and sacred solidarity. Their combined mojo has led them to a seemingly endless number of avant-garde and madcap adventures.

Twenty years after they met, Mary’s memory of her initial moments with Jim inspired her to write the torch song “I’m in Trouble Now.” Theirs was a brief whirlwind of a courtship, culminating in Jim’s marriage proposal atop the World Trade Center. The broad and almost limitless view from those now-extinguished structures is echoed in the eternally optimistic and horizon-shattering perspective that Jim brings to the partnership. “Jim is the impetus behind all the creative stuff that goes on,” said Mary.

During their early years in Manhattan, they sustained each other with a constant infusion of audaciousness, support and laughter. As each other’s bulwark, they embarked on non-traditional and serpentine career paths. Relegating her inner songstress to a twitching backburner, Mary worked as a model, booking agent’s assistant, go-to girl at Crawdaddy magazine and as a receptionist—for Alice Cooper, no less. She said, “I had fun and learned so many things that would be useful later on.”

The connections Mary made in the worlds of print media, celebrity talent and music soon proved invaluable to Jim’s own career. “Mary became my photo rep,” he explained. Brimming with personality and fierce persistence, the then-recent FIT graduate achieved success as a freelance photographer. Few people have had Jim’s experiences of being in close proximity to such iconic figures as Liberace, Neil Armstrong and Gerald Ford, never mind enjoying the intimacy crucial to capturing someone’s essence in a visual medium.

But Jim’s opus as a photographer is undoubtedly the classic shots he took of Bruce Springsteen while on tour with the band throughout Europe. For this, he received the rare honor of a gallery show in London. Another unimpeachable testament to Jim’s artistry was Julian Lennon’s purchase of one of his photographs of The Dakota building, where John Lennon lived and was fatally shot.

A particularly memorable and sensory-laden adventure unfolded while the duo served as photo team and guests at Steven Van Zandt’s wedding. The occasion included the bride and groom walking down a candle-lit aisle while an in-the-flesh Percy Sledge sang, “When a Man Loves a Woman.” In the roles of best man and preacher, were Bruce Springsteen and Little Richard, respectively.

A move to Long Island in the early ‘90s set in motion the dynamics that would lead to the formation of the Mary Lamont Band in 1996. While still busily engaged in the world of photography and enjoying their new roles as parents, Jim rekindled a childhood passion for guitar through a swift and complete immersion into the Island’s jam scene. Mary, who needed to be coaxed to sing in church by her dad while growing up in rural Canada, required her husband’s gentle prodding to share her innate and prodigious gift as a singer at the jams. She eventually agreed and very quickly morphed into a country sorceress who could get Mitt Romney to dance the two-step. Mary said, “Whenever Jim played songs with a country feel…it was a good fit…I already had the hick thing down.” Jim added, “Mary is so natural and real.” It was set—Mary would sing, Jim would play guitar and act as her manager.

Fifteen years of playing a ballsy and unique brand of Americana has yielded many rewards: Headlining the IMAC Theater, winning three New York Metro Country Music awards and touring mainland China, among them. During this tour, Mary and Jim had the surreal experience of playing a set of their “killer country” supplemented by twenty Chinese sax players, each wearing a white suit. The band’s two cds, You Don’t Have to Knock and How Lucky, have garnered fantastic reviews and international airplay. In 2011, Mary added “disc jockey” to her CV as the host of Down Home Country, her monthly hoedown on WUSB. Recently, she sat in with the legendary Les Paul Trio at the Iridium in Manhattan, while Jim stealthily took some photographs. He said simply, “That was a delight.”

And so it goes. Love, music, memories, love, mus­—

Hear more at marylamont.com. See more at jimmarchese.com.

Fans of The Band might be wondering of late whatever happened to the group’s guitarist and principal songwriter Robbie Robertson. His group famously ended its career with what many consider the greatest film on rock music ever made—The Last Waltz, a 1978 classic that continues to influence musicians. Yet, since 1998, Robertson has not released any albums of his own. His first four solo albums garnered unanimous praise and many were surprised by Robertson’s confident vocals, considering he usually left the singing to bandmates Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel (the fifth member, Garth Hudson, played keyboards). Still, he’s been extremely busy.

For twenty years, Robertson put his celebrated composing skills to good use, writing and producing film scores primarily for director of The Last Waltz and good friend, Martin Scorsese. Beginning with Raging Bull, Robertson worked on such Scorsese films as The King of Comedy, The Color of Money, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Departed and Shutter Island. He also worked on films with Taylor Hackford, Barry Levinson and Oliver Stone, and as an actor and film narrator. Additionally, he worked in music behind the scenes as an executive at Dreamworks Records and as a key member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominating Committee, the Ahmet Ertegun Selection Committee and the Recording Excellence Selection Committee. Although he has made the occasional live television appearance and guest spots on such one-off performances as Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival concerts, he still does not tour.

Exactly twenty years ago, when Robertson released his 1991 album Storyville, we met in a spacious, top-floor suite at Manhattan’s Ritz-Carlton. Robertson was subdued and initially distracted when we began talking back then; a vintage performance of the Duke Ellington band, featuring Johnny Hodges, played on a television in the background. The person I talked to this time around was completely different. Robertson was jazzed about the events of the previous evening. The Gagosian Gallery held a launch for his newest solo album, How To Become Clairvoyant (Macrobiotic/429). The launch was held at this venerable art gallery because a special edition release of the album features prints by artists who contributed to the project, including Richard Prince and Sante D’Orazio. After the launch, Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone magazine held a party for Robertson filled with artists from the world of film (Robert De Niro) and music (Bruce Springsteen).

Robertson was still talking about the night before and planning to leave for New Orleans after our interview. His trip would include interviewing Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Little Richard for a film to become part of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame archives. “It’s just a thrilling thing,” Robertson began about meeting these founding fathers of rock, his deep voice still revealing inflections of his Canadian upbringing. “We’ve got to get these guys to tell the real story of rock & roll while they’re still here. There will be instruments around if they feel like playing music. I’m most interested in the stories.” Robertson said with a laugh that he can’t wait to ask the question, “Which one of you guys started rock & roll?”

Robertson, an inductee of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, collaborated on his latest solo album with another Hall member, Eric Clapton. While the two have performed together before (including in The Last Waltz) and written songs together, this project is their most intimate collaboration to date. “He is a dear old friend of mine,” Robertson began, “and somebody that I admire tremendously on a music level and on a personal level. He said, ‘Well, listen, why don’t you just come to London and let’s go in the studio and see what happens?’ We’ve been talking about doing this for ages. We’ve worked together and done things over the years, but not like really get in the trenches together like that. We had such a fantastic time. It was just a magical thing. It was one of the best-feeling recording experiences I’ve had in my life and I’ve had a few. Then [Steve] Winwood came in and helped, and it felt like we’d been doing this together for years. We were able to just click so quickly.” Robertson became a bit emotional when actually remembering how long he’s known Steve Winwood. “I’ve known Winwood longer than I’ve known Eric. I met him when I was on tour with Bob Dylan during that famous tour in 1966. I met Eric after [Music From] Big Pink came out in ‘68.”

Robertson continued to talk about how the album progressed. “We just had a great time and then after we did the recording, Eric said, ‘Well, this has just turned out fantastic. You need to go and do your thing now and finish this thing up.’ When I came back, I had to put it aside because I promised Scorsese that I would work on Shutter Island.” For the work he did composing this film score, Robertson immersed himself in the world of modern classical music and “thrived on the learning experience.” As for eventually picking up the thread of the new album, he said it “was such a luxury to let the dust settle and come back and decide I want Trent Reznor, Tom Morello, Robert Randolph…I was able to cast these people in this like you would a movie. I was still in movie mode because I had just finished Shutter Island.”

A special two-cd edition, with 10 bonus tracks, gives fans a chance to really see how the songs unfold. Robertson described the bonus tracks as “really intimate portraits” and elaborated by saying, “It’s like a painter does something, but, where did it come from? What was the idea that sparked this?” Robertson explained the bonus tracks further, saying it was “Eric and me with just two guitars in front of one another, with a couple of microphones, writing on the spot and doing something that makes us think this is going somewhere. This is something we’ve got to follow through on.”

The new cd is a real breakthrough for Robertson, as it contains songs of a very personal nature. Robertson normally writes like a novelist or a playwright, creating characters and telling a story. When I pointed out that he seemed to be looking back on his own life and time with The Band and Bob Dylan, he said, “I’ve never known how to do that before. I can write stories about fictional characters. I love the whole mythology thing and I love contributing to mythologies. These reflections just felt so comfortable. I think I’m at a time in my life that those reflections for me are ok now. It used to be that wasn’t ok with me. I felt like I didn’t want to write ‘me’ songs. John Lennon could do it, but not many people could… Reflection becomes a heartfelt thing,” he stated. “All the experiences…if I don’t share them with people, what good are they?”

Throughout our time together, Robertson seemed more animated than any time we’d spoken before. As we were winding down our conversation, we talked about The Last Waltz, of which he is still so proud. He spoke about the impetus for the project. “I wanted to do something that hopefully had a timeless quality to it. It’s why I chose Martin Scorsese. I thought we could go to a deeper place on this and do something that people hadn’t done before, especially considering that I really disliked rock documentaries. I found them boring and I wanted to do something about that. I would talk to Scorsese and I was like ‘I don’t like any of these movies, any of these music films.’ I like some great musicals though. I love watching West Side Story, Singin’ In The Rain. I like music films. I just don’t like these other ones with the grainy, jittery look.” It was Scorsese who suggested how to make the film. “He said, ‘We got to do it in 35mm. We got to do this like a movie.’ And I said, ‘Now we’re talking.’ So, our ambitions and imaginations just grew. I’m so glad I did that. All the pieces fit together. It was absolutely a project that while you were doing it you felt the gods were on your side.”

Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin is either the year’s funniest horror movie or darkest comedy, or maybe both. The distinction is probably unnecessary though, since few genres are as similar as comedy and horror, each with a tradition of subversiveness and an insatiable desire to inspire spontaneous and illogical physical reactions (terror and laughter). That subversive streak is on full view in We Need to Talk About Kevin, as Ramsay takes direct aim at that most hallowed of American sacred cows: Motherhood.

There is a widely-held belief that giving birth automatically induces maternal feelings in every woman (although the number of people in therapy or in need of therapy might poke some holes in that theory), but that certainly didn’t happen to Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton). She is a hip, urban bohemian until an unexpectedly fertile encounter with her boyfriend (John C. Reilly) leads inexorably to parenthood, marriage and a sterile existence in a suburban McMansion. She goes on to experience one of the ultimate parental nightmares: Her child grows-up to be a monster—a remorseless, sociopathic, mass-murderer. Ramsay flips back-and-forth in time between the present, where Eva tries to piece together some semblance of normalcy living amidst the friends and family of Kevin’s victims, and a past that she mercilessly relives in search of the answer to the big question: Why does Kevin kill? Is Eva unable to bond with her son because there is something deeply wrong with him almost since birth or is he irrevocably damaged by having a mother who never wanted him? Or maybe it comes from growing up in a cultural void? Unlike other evil-kid movies (The Bad Seed, The Omen and Children of the Corn) where the source of the child’s malevolence is unambiguously demonic, Ramsay offers no easy answers.

Anyone who has seen any of Ramsay’s previous works (Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar) knows that she has an amazing ability to convey her characters’ inner emotions through purely visual means. With bold widescreen compositions and a highly evocative use of the color red, Ramsay compels us to experience the world through Eva’s eyes, even though she is someone that not all viewers will find sympathetic.

Ramsay is fortunate to have a fearless actress like Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton (I Am Love, Michael Clayton) to play Eva. Swinton gives a raw, intense performance that allows us to feel every nuance of Eva’s hope, discomfort and fear. She is matched beautifully by Ezra Miller (City Island) as her sardonic, chillingly ruthless son.

From the mesmerizing opening images of Eva swimming in a sea of red to the film’s quiet finale, We Need to Talk About Kevin keeps astonishing us even though the story holds few surprises. There is never much doubt about what will happen, but Ramsay’s brilliant direction, Swinton’s amazing performance and the unsettling enigmas at the heart of this fascinating movie keep setting off sparks in your brain, even long after the film has ended.

Although winter months are traditionally a hibernation period for Broadway, this January and February have seen a few inviting openings, even though some hopefuls fell prey to apathetic responses and low grosses (Chinglish, Bonnie & Clyde, Relatively Speaking, Lysistrata Jones). Perhaps with the holidays out of the way, audiences will brave the cold for such stars as Cynthia Nixon and Rosemary Harris and playwriting luminaries like Athol Fugard and David Ives.

Actually, Ives, of All in the Timing fame, has already succeeded this season with his psycho-sexual comedy, Venus in Fur, about an auditioning actress turning the tables on a demanding director. So well received was the play, especially its star turn by Nina Arianda, that when Manhattan Theatre Club had to end the show’s limited run at their Samuel J. Friedman Theatre to make room for another production (see below), the company decided to move Venus to Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre, where it reopens February 7.

Also expected this month, though a theater has yet to be announced, is a new sports play from Eric Simonson, who gave Broadway the surprise hit Lombardi. This time, the Chicago-based scribe tackles two basketball legends, the Lakers’ Magic Johnson and the Celtics’ Larry Bird in the aptly titled, Magic/Bird.

From these paragons of health and physical activity, Broadway will then move to a brainiac who copes with the worst ravages of illness. Wit, which won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, makes its Broadway debut at Manhattan Theatre Club’s aforementioned Friedman Theatre, with Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon playing the English professor laid low by fourth-stage ovarian cancer.

Meanwhile, at the American Airlines Theatre, the Roundabout is reviving another off-Broadway drama, The Road to Mecca, by celebrated South African author Athol Fugard. Penned during the last gasp of the apartheid years, Mecca tells the true story of an independent elderly woman (Harris) who refuses to let racist social mores inhibit her life or her art. Jim Dale and Carla Gugino also star.

Finally, from the potentially sublime we move to…well…

Appearing in his first Broadway show since 1962 will be none other than Denny Crane, the dad in Sh*t My Dad Says, the host of Rescue 911, the original Twilight Zone guy who sees the gremlin on the plane wing, the warbler who unforgettably sang (sort of) “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and, of course, Captain James T. Kirk—yes, none other than 80-year-old William Shatner will bring his one-man touring show, Shatner’s World: We Just Live In It, to Broadway’s Music Box Theatre.

I’m too much in awe to add anything but random lines from parodies of the Rolling Stones’ “Shattered”:

Even with all my success it’s only Trek and Trek and Trek and look at me! I’m in tatters!

Don’t you know my hairline’s going up, up, up, up, UP? Look at me! I’m Shatner Shatner.

Yes, by God, Shatner Shatner.

Beth Levinthal, Executive Director of the Hofstra University Museum, brings sophisticated art to the people of Long Island, and she’s been doing this for nearly thirty years at various venues throughout the region. With her sunny disposition and a voice that sounds as if she cares infinitely about the power of art and the people it moves, Ms. Levinthal has provided a clear mission: “I want to connect the arts to the people and to our cultural heritage.”

It began in 1987 when she joined the Art League of Long Island as an arts educator and the public programs coordinator for children. “I was aware of what art had done for me, the positive experience it offers, and I’ve always wanted others to take part in that same experience,” she remembered.

In 1994, she joined the staff of the Heckscher Museum of Art and subsequently became Executive Director from 2000-2006. “There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing a child or some community resident come to an exhibit and leave with a fresh perspective. You can literally see their faces change. And we want to be able to bring that same gift to as many people as we can.”

When Ms. Levinthal joined Hofstra University in the summer of 2006, she brought that same optimistic message, and this authentic enthusiasm and clear vision quickly caught on within the surrounding community. Initially, upon her arrival, there were only 1,100 visitors to the Hofstra Museum, while this past year the museum boasted a staggering 24,000 attendees, comprising both students and the neighboring public. “Our exhibits come from our permanent collection, which consists of 5,000 works from across the globe, some of which dates back as early as 5000 BC, as well as pieces by contemporary artists who demonstrate historical or cultural significance, and subjects that are relevant and educational.”

With the US economic downturn in recent years, it’s hopeful to see museum attendance continue to grow despite shrinking funds and grant donations. “We’re affected by it like everyone else. We seek some of our funds from corporations, banks, and many others, and we’ve been fortunate to get various grants, but still there’s just less coming in unfortunately. It’s just these lean times we live in, and so it impacts how we approach our exhibition planning. Now I suppose we just have to be more creative in how we implement our budget.”

Ms. Levinthal and her team put forth their imaginative efforts year round, having to plan two years in advance to shape their shows. “Our team works tirelessly to put together an exhibit that tells an engaging story, while making use of the gallery space in a way that people will appreciate the narrative you’re presenting. Sometimes that means staying relevant whether culturally, politically, or even incorporating some of the newer technology by hosting iPod tours, or providing digital kiosks with QR codes that are interactive with cell phones and the exhibit.”

Even after thirty solid years in the art world, Ms. Levinthal doesn’t seem to be decelerating. Her focus of bringing art to the people is still at the forefront of her imagination. “We all come to art with different experiences, but it’s the message that unites us.”

Once in a while, if we’re incredibly lucky, we meet our heroes.

Once in awhile, if we’re incredibly unlucky, we get struck by lightning.

On a stormy August day in the Berkshire Mountains of 1976, Long Island bluegrass legend Buddy Merriam did both.

“When Bill Monroe hit the stage, I never heard anything as powerful in my life,” said Merriam, recalling the day he met the great-grandfather of this most American of American musical genres.

“I found myself outside [Monroe’s] bus,” Merriam continued. “I ran into him pretty much by accident. I told him how much his playing meant to me. He saw I had a mandolin strapped on my shoulder and he gave me some advice.”

“Get good tone, keep good time and make every note count,” Monroe said.

That was all Merriam needed to hear.

“That’s the entire bluegrass tradition right there,” said Merriam, “It’s what I tell all my students.”

As that summer day unfolded in true “Crossroads” fashion, it’s easy to see that Buddy Merriam did not choose bluegrass—bluegrass chose him.

“I was right at the front of the stage [at the Berkshires festival],” said Merriam. “Later on that evening, this wicked storm blew in. Rain was teeming down. Everyone was heading for cover. But we just hung in there. The music was so powerful.

“The band kept playing. Lightning started touching down. The band finally shut it down. I turned to leave and BAM! Lightning hit me right in the neck.”
Merriam survived, though he suffered severe hearing loss. After a long road of physical rehabilitation, he gradually got his dexterity and his ears back, all en route to mastering the music he quickly came to love, creating his long evolving collective Back Roads and becoming the primary benefactor of bluegrass music on Long Island and in the Northeast.

As a bandleader, songwriter, elite mandolin player and radio host, what Merriam has really been doing for more than 30 years is—note by note—carving his own bust into the Mt. Rushmore of bluegrass greats, next to his idols Monroe and the underrated banjo great, Jerry Garcia.

“I was a big Deadhead!” Merriam exclaimed. “That was my original way into all of this stuff.”

Greg Butler can say the same. The 32-year-old mandolin/guitar player from East Quogue has started chiseling away at that fourth spot on the mountaintop by falling right under Merriam’s wing; first as a student, then as a collaborator.

“Finding out that Jerry played the banjo in Old and in the Way, I started to feel how all of this music is connected,” said Butler as he traced his own “Deadgrass” roots. “‘Dark Star’ was something I remember playing along to, figuring out Jerry’s modal visions.”

In the lessons that Merriam shared with Butler, both could sense a legitimate musical bond. After Butler went his own way for a while in a series of musical and personal explorations of various shades, he eventually circled back to play with Merriam in a more serious way.

“It seems every time I pick up the mandolin, I learn something new,” explained Butler with his signature joie de vivre. “I can sit for hours at a time and let practicing turn into full enjoyment. I think inspiration is a huge factor in becoming a player. Buddy has inspired me through his kind words and powerful music. He really writes great melodies.”

As the scene’s young gun, Butler is keenly aware that his unique place as a champion of “newgrass” is about more than the playing. “Making every note count,” as Monroe and Merriam preached before him, is not only a musical tenet—it’s a way of life.

“I try to view the world as having a common thread, being human and not taking life for granted. I think I try to make every second count in the world. Also, improvisation is a big part of the music and I think that it helps me react to real life situations.”

As Butler swings, shuffles and shitkicks his way into the musical future, he carries an homage to the past down every road he travels.

“I’m honored and excited to be considered part of this tradition,” said Butler. “I respect the players of the past and learned from them as best as I could. I hope my future is full of mandolin music as well as love. I can only say for sure that it will have tons of melodies, down picks, chromatics, cross picking, triplets, double stops, long tones, arpeggios, slides, octaves, original music and harmonies.”

As for Merriam, that he’s even alive and playing at all is the miracle that sustains him daily. His two-step with fate left him with some scars, but it also made his path crystal clear.

“I have trouble tuning and I can’t really sing,” laughed Merriam. “But I’m doing exactly what I want to do with my life.”

Buddy Merriam gigs with his trio the 2nd Wednesday of every month at Three Village Inn’s Mirabelle Tavern in Stony Brook from 8-10pm. The next two shows will be on February 8 and March 14. He also hosts the weekly Blue Grass Time radio show Wednesday nights on WUSB 90.1 FM in Stony Brook. Greg Butler can be heard sitting in with Buddy, in his duo with Jesse Pagano at Patchogue’s The Tap Room or with his original “Newgrass” outfit, Free Grass Union. 

December selections for 92.9 and 96.9 WEHM New Release Tuesdays (airing every Tuesday from 9-10pm) is an eclectic group, ranging from garage rock to jazz to mellow acoustic.

Garage rock revivalist duo The Black Keys returns with El Camino and the track “Lonely Boy.” The production is raw and powerful with a sudden expansive chorus that transforms the song from straightforward to revelatory.

The first release after her tragic passing, Amy Winehouse’s Lioness: Hidden Treasures features the song “Body and Soul,” a jazz standard duet with Tony Bennett. Her distinctive, throaty vocals soar and are a vivid demonstration of her formidable chops.

This Warm December, A Brushfire Holiday Vol. 2 is a compilation album by Brushfire Records to benefit children’s music education charities. It features the Jack Johnson track “In the Morning,” a philosophical take on the generous spirit of the holidays done in his own inimitable way.

Hearing is Believing
the PULSE iTunes store is now open!
Click on our iTunes store to test drive these albums and more. If you like what you hear, you can purchase right there! Film playlists and other music is also available. Ever wonder how PULSE people handle the late nights? Take a listen to our Deadline Playlist and find out! lipulse.com and iTunes—we’re here for your listening pleasure.

Load in CDs from UK artists that Charles Dickens and even Scrooge would like.

The Kooks
Junk of the Heart
(Astralwerks)

On its first two albums, The Kooks made music somewhere between being punk rockers and Kinks-era pop revivalists. Hardly a punk band, its subtle 60s influences included naming its previous album after the Kinks’ recording studio. Thankfully, this new release dispenses with the group’s rougher edges and finds it sounding more focused with a very distinct studio polish. This is quite a leap forward and shows that beneath the retro raucous edge of the past lurks a real band that can write and perform great songs.

Richard Ashcroft and the United Nations of Sound
Richard Ashcroft and the United Nations of Sound
(Razor & Tie)

Richard Ashcroft did not stray very far from the Brit-pop of The Verve on his previous solo albums. This release still looks and feels like an Ashcroft solo album, but with a much more pronounced electro-r&b feel. Some of the tracks are perfect for the dance floor. Ashcroft still knows how to craft expansive pop, but he seems to be enjoying himself experimenting with rhythms. Although I loved his earlier music, this is a very listenable and almost fun album for the uninitiated.

James Morrison
The Awakening
(Republic)

Riding the early 21st-century, UK soul revival, James Morrison is sometimes overshadowed by contemporaries such as James Blunt, Corinne Bailey Rae and, of course, Adele. Given the strength of this, his third solo album, that’s all about to change. Morrison’s passionate vocals and unforgettable songs along with the spot-on production make this one of the most joyous albums of the year and one that is soulful, without merely being retro.

Bell X1
Bloodless Coup
(yepRoc) 

With its previous release and debut on yepRoc, the Irish band had its major breakthrough with the title song. With a sound that mixes Radiohead and the now nearly forgotten The Blue Nile, on this new release, its fifth studio album (the band also has a live album), Bell X1 is a band that continues to increase its audience without appearing commercial. This single, “Velcro” has already garnered considerable airplay. Bell X1 may not take over the world, but it clearly is a band to watch for.

Joseph Arthur
The Graduation Ceremony
(Lonely Astronaut) 

Since 1996, Joseph Arthur’s career spans eight full albums, eleven EPs and an album as part of the group Fistful of Mercy with Ben Harper and Dhani Harrison. He also launched a successful career as a painter and an art gallery owner. Arthur’s latest is yet another beautiful and compassionate musical meditation. With the talent to write unforgettable and memorable songs, it’s that quiet, acoustic sweet spot Arthur finds that’s mesmerizing.

Hearing is Believing
the PULSE iTunes store is now open!
Click on our iTunes store to test drive these albums and more. If you like what you hear, you can purchase right there! Film playlists and other music is also available. Ever wonder how PULSE people handle the late nights? Take a listen to our Deadline Playlist and find out! lipulse.com and iTunes—we’re here for your listening pleasure.

In this quiet frothy blanket
We are making peace
The silent drifting and tender whispers of fate
Promising to transform
The dangers of politics
And men with fingers poised over buttons
And boys and girls in broken places
In the laughter of our
Distant selves across telephone lines
And close gathering of friends
We are crowding evil out
To fill even the tiniest spaces with goodness
For safety to our troops
And sympathy for our strangers
These nights of stars and snow and love
Are ours
But they are ours to make pure for others

Dave’s nights are haunted. He listens at the doors, at the windows and hears that hideous shuffling, scratching sound. The evil ones are out there. Massing.

It’s November. Hell yes they’re out there, the creeps.

Dave lives in the woods. Not the woods woods, but the Long Island exurban version—three-quarters of an acre and a terrible lot of trees. Every November they return, wave after wave, parachuting in and lying there all innocent-like, the way they do. Then they start sneaking in.

There’s one now. He hadn’t even been outside yet this morning, so it’s no good pretending the leaf accidentally got snagged on his pants cuff or something. No, he’d specifically swept the entryway last night. Or maybe it was the day before. Who knows anymore, he’s so groggy from lack of sleep. He strolls casually behind it then pounces, grabs the hideous thing by its tail, opens the door just five inches, hurls it out and slams the door fast, before the others can attack.

Two days ago, Dave walked out like the guy in the movie about the birds, stepping gingerly through them all. He opened the car door and there, above the hinge, in the little space no bigger than his hand, for god’s sake, was a sleeper cell. Six or eight leaves just crammed in there, probably hoping to hitch a ride to one of their secret meetings. He cleaned them out but good. Then, yesterday morning, he opened the car door again and there was another gang of them wedged in there. “Don’t you guys get it?” he screamed. “I’m on to your tricks!” His neighbor, Mrs. Rappaport, shot him a worried look, dropped her rake and scurried inside.

Dave considers trying to slow his breathing. That’s what his therapist advised. “This November, Dave, why not try meditating?” he said. “Close your eyes and think peaceful thoughts.”

Dave said he would, but he knew he wouldn’t, because as soon as he closes his eyes, they start trying to work their way into his house again. He’d found one in his jacket pocket that very morning. In his jacket pocket. The fiend.

“Dave, they’re leaves,” the therapist said. “They’re dead.”

Undead, Dave thought.

“They’re not out to get you.”

Dave wanted to ask, then why do they keep coming? He gets them all raked up and things are okay for a while and then they come for him again. He was about to say that but then he looked down and saw one clinging to his therapist’s sock. Oh god, he thought. It heard everything. Or maybe…maybe they’re working together. Mind control. The creeps never stop. Dave hadn’t been back to the therapist since then.

Dave goes into the kitchen to make a soothing cup of tea. He’s about to put the kettle under the faucet when he sees it—a leaf floating in the little space between the storm window and the inside window. There was no leaf there last night. It’s fluttering , taunting him. No, wait, it’s stuck! Somehow it had breached the outer window and was on its way in but had gotten caught on a spider web. “Ha!” Dave howls. “Got you, you bastard!” Dave never kills spiders for this purpose; they’re a key part of his border guard. In fact, when he finds one in the garage, he transplants it to the windows.

Dave opens the kitchen window and carefully clasps the leaf with a pair of salad tongs, trying to damage the web as little as possible. He carries it toward the front door to throw it out but stops dead. Blood drains from his face. Impossible. There. Right there. Another leaf on the floor. He’d just cleared that sector. Dave takes off his slipper and begins pounding the leaf, but it’s fairly fresh and keeps springing back instead of crumbling. Dave gives it grudging respect; this zombie can take a lick.

That’s how Dave’s wife finds him when she comes down the stairs—on his knees, one hand slamming a leaf on the floor with a slipper, the other hand clutching a leaf with a pair of salad tongs.

“Hi honey,” she says, stopping then pirouetting so he can check her for stowaways. They’d been through many Novembers together.

The Art of Collage

With its exhibition, Ripped: The Allure of Collage, The Hecksher Museum of Art recognizes the first medium to challenge artistic conventions of painting and sculpture in the last century. The show, on view through January 8, features approximately 50 pieces by European and American artists, including long-dead masters of the medium and some of the most respected collagists working today. Collages by Long Island legends Roy Lichtenstein and Ray Johnson are among the work in the diverse collection. Other notables include Jean Arp, Romare Bearden, Salvador Dalí, Conrad Marca-Relli and contemporary artists Nancy Scheinman, John Digby and Steven Ford. An important exhibition considering the scarcity of collage displayed in major museums, Ripped is a rare treat not to be missed. The Heckscher invited Kenneth Wayne, PhD to be the show’s guest curator.

The Heckscher Museum of Art, 2 Prime Avenue, Huntington.
(631) 351-3250, heckscher.org.

Mapping the Body

The University Center Gallery at Adelphi University is showcasing a series of unique monoprints by Catherine Bebout through January 8. Mapping the Body is a collection of work influenced by Bebout’s time in India during her 2008 Fulbright research grant. The artist explores maps, travel, Oriental and Ayurvedic medicine, effects of globalization on the human body and the systems of organization used to chart these ideas. Each one-of-a-kind piece is a palimpsest of information built through multiple printmaking processes and digital imaging tools, including silkscreen, lithography and monoprinting. Bebout seeks to reveal deeper meaning and the interconnectedness between all living things by weaving together personal iconography and images appropriated during her travels to remote and exotic locales in India and Asia. The result is a striking series worth contemplation. The exhibition is open from December 6 to January 8. An artist reception is scheduled for Wednesday, December 7 at 5pm.

Ruth S. Harley University Center Gallery at Adelphi University, 1 South Ave, Garden City. (516) 877-3000, adelphi.edu/artmuseum.

Bill Wyman is chatting amiably at his home in London. The former bass player and original member of the Rolling Stones left the group in 1992, after 30 years as one half of one of the best rhythm sections in rock history. Contrary to popular belief, he is still close with the rest of the group. “I’m still great mates with the band,” he remarked. “We send each other birthday and Christmas presents. We see each other and of course I’m involved in some of their projects when they’re releasing earlier stuff.”

According to him, some of the current members of the group are not happy that Wyman is no longer in the band. Keith Richards famously stated that “No one leaves the Stones unless it’s in a pine box” after Mick Taylor decided to leave the band, but the quote could perhaps be applied to Wyman as well. He told me the story of how Charlie Watts, on tour at the time, called him and told him, “I was on stage last night and I turned around to tell you something and you weren’t there!”

But he is the lesser known Stone. Few people even realize Wyman decided to leave the group and eventually form his own group, the Rhythm Kings. “I just wanted to start again and do all the things that I always wanted to do as a young boy when I joined the Stones,” he stated. The new Rhythm Kings release is Collector’s Edition Box Set (Proper American) and it includes the group’s first four studio albums and a bonus disc. Wyman spoke affectionately of the group he formed two years after leaving the Stones. “It’s such a pleasure to do,” he remarked. “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love it to death. It’s wonderful just to do it for the music and not to think about the money, or the fame or the fortune, or the image or the clothes, or the record company or the charts.”

Wyman talked about how the Rhythm Kings were preparing for their upcoming European tour by spending three afternoons before the tour rehearsing, and how it differs from preparing for a Stones tour. “When I was in the Stones, we used to go in for four weeks to rehearse songs we’d been playing for 30 years,” he began. “It used to frustrate me to death with the time wasted and the money wasted.”
He elaborated further on why he needed to leave the Stones. “This is enough,” he felt at the time. “I’d done it 30 years. We’d done everything we ever aimed to do and achieve and we’ve had the greatest tours ever. What else is there to do apart from repeating what we’d already done.”

Through the years, Wyman opened a restaurant in London called Sticky Fingers, is busy raising his three daughters, and wrote six books and continues to exhibit his photos. Along with a book on the history of England, a photo book on the artist Marc Chagall, Wyman’s former neighbor in the south of France, and one on the history of the blues, Wyman wrote three books on the Stones. He’s also unofficially the band’s archivist and has amassed a collection of memorabilia that any Stones fan would die for. The members of the group send him tour t-shirts, backstage passes and just about anything Stones related. It’s a unique situation to remain such a die-hard fan of a group he actually left some twenty years ago.

The Rhythm Kings are set to record a new album in the spring. It will be the group’s sixth studio release (they have two live albums). The core of the veritable supergroup is made up of Terry Taylor, British guitar legend Albert Lee and 60’s r&b icon Georgie Fame. Along the way the band also toured with Peter Frampton, Gary Brooker, Paul Carrack and Gary U.S. Bonds. On the band’s upcoming tour, Mary Wilson of The Supremes will join the band.

The group’s albums include guests on some tracks such as Eric Clapton, George Harrison and Mick Taylor. Wyman appeared bittersweet when talking about Taylor. “I always admired Mick’s work over the years,” he stated. “He was fantastic when he joined the Stones. He was a stunning player in those years he was with us.” Wyman then said that when Taylor first played with the Rhythm Kings, he was having problems and that over the years he “blew money on drugs and sold his guitars.” More recently, Taylor played with the Rhythm Kings live and was “doing well.” When I mentioned to Wyman that I thought Taylor to be very underrated during his tenure with the group (and the group recorded its best albums with him), he simply said, “ditto.”

To give real insight into the evolution of the Stones, I asked Wyman to give his take on the three guitar players who marked the distinct periods of the group’s history. “Brian Jones was a genius,” he began, “who could pick up an instrument and find something in that instrument to embellish a particular song at the time. He did that all the way through the 60s with things like ‘Ruby Tuesday’ and ‘2,000 Light Years From Home’ on the Mellotron and the glockenspiel, and he just picked up anything—flutes, harps—that was his genius.”

“Mick Taylor came along,” he continued, “and blew us away with his quality and talent, especially on slide; and those albums with Jimmy Miller are my favorite albums—Beggars Banquet, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St. and Let It Bleed—they’re my four favorites.”

“Woody’s [Ron Wood] a clown” he remarked. “I love Woody. He became like the link between me and Charlie, the quiet ones, and Mick and Keith, the egotistical ones. He kind of fell into the slot in the middle and kept us buzzing musically with his humor. He always sat well in the band next to Keith since he joined. He works better than anyone else I could think of that might have filled that spot after Mick Taylor left. He was the perfect fit there and he still is.”

Wyman elaborated further on Brian Jones and his love and knowledge for the blues. This got Wyman thinking about how early on in the group’s genesis, he was actually the odd man out for his pure love of black rock ‘n’ roll. It further illustrated why being with the Rhythm Kings is so enjoyable for him. He talked about how he would order records from Chicago and recalled affectionately a list that included Sam Cooke, Chuck Berry, Larry Williams, Lloyd Price, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran and Jerry Lee Lewis. He then remembered how the other Stones felt about that music. “The Stones hated all that music,” he remarked. “They all learned to like it over the years.”

On December 27th at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, Bill Shelley will present another night of the music of the Rolling Stones, the Mick Taylor years, as part of the Rock Legends Live! series.

Colin Goldberg’s artworks are like surprises. Even when found expectantly on a gallery wall or in a virtual gallery, Goldberg’s compositions seem to come from nowhere and burst into being. They demand attention and then won’t let go. Goldberg’s art doesn’t just project energy; it teems.

Some pieces have see-through forms that seem to be in mid-twist just before swirling away beyond seeable surfaces. Futuristic landscapes set in an imagined galaxy are another playground for Goldberg. Other compositions present Goldberg’s version of sedate: Seemingly classical forms gracefully pose so viewers can ponder their heritage, possible meanings and why they aren’t exactly like anything seen before.

Goldberg is part of a new generation of abstract artists. He’s also a techie. Whirl together a love of digital technology, sci-fi, abstraction, gestural marks, artistic exploration and intuition, this is the stew from which Goldberg’s artwork bubbles. Despite the high-tech tools, Goldberg’s art is couched in art history, too. His abstract art channels the unconscious gesture just like the abstract artists in the fifties and sixties. Like the pop artists of the seventies, Goldberg uses industrial tools to make fine art; his toolbox happens to be computer technology.

“I’m lucky to be born in a time where I get to be a first-generation artist working with digital tools,” Goldberg said.

Goldberg’s multi-step practice can incorporate photography, digital art making, drawing, painting, Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and other tools and methods. Many times, Goldberg’s art begins with a “painterly ground” on paper or canvas made with acrylic, latex paint or ink wash. Functioning almost like an underpainting, the ground becomes a springboard to evoke an artistic “response” using digital technology.
The newly-created visuals are layered on top of the painting using silkscreen or pigment printing. Sometimes the work remains as is. Other times, Goldberg paints on top of the print.

The artist is big into using technology to make art (this includes making art for mobile applications such as the iPhone and iPad), but his art concerns are no different than those of artists working with more traditional methods of expression like paint brushes, charcoal or collage.

“Artists have been experimenting with materials for centuries,” he said. “The digital age will not supplant the traditional arts but will expand them. The art world is changing because of technology. As an artist, I’m using the tools that are available to me. It would be foolish not to explore what technology has to offer artists and the possibilities for making art.”

When making his abstract works, Goldberg explores the possibility of gesture and allows spontaneous discovery to lead where it may. It is the unconscious and the quality of the implied gesture that drives Goldberg’s art—not the technology used to make the work.

Goldberg’s been using the computer to make art since the early eighties, he said. After setting out to become a painter, he became entranced with the digital possibilities for art making and kept going. He received an MFA in Computer Art from Bowling Green State University.

Besides paintings and digital prints, Goldberg makes video installation and interactive artwork incorporating his digital art as subject and action.

Goldberg’s work is in the art collection held by the Pollock-Krasner House & Study Center. He’s exhibited at the Parrish Art Museum, the Roberson Museum in Binghamton and galleries located in Long Island, Manhattan, California, Massachusetts and Hawaii. He lives in Orient.

Goldberg’s art will be part of the EMERGE 1.0 group show, being shown at Terrence Joyce Gallery in Greenport from December 3, 2011-January 1, 2012. The opening is on Saturday, December 3 from 6-9pm. He will also be exhibiting in a solo show at Yes! Gallery from December 17, 2011 through January 15, 2012. An opening will be held on Saturday, December 17 from 5 to 10pm. The Yes! Gallery is located at 147 India Street, in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section. colingoldberg.com.

Most of us feel we don’t really fit into a box, but oftentimes we are too scared of ridicule to say so openly. Ironically, we still tend to try to fit other people into neat little boxes. Those who live as they are, without apology, are often the ones who bring about revolution—and they usually don’t understand what the big deal is for the rest of us. These are people who push boundaries without realizing they’re doing it. If you tell them they’re breaking new ground, they will shrug their shoulders and say they’re just being themselves.

It is that way with Katie Pearlman, a New Jersey native who now lives and makes music on Long Island. Born to a family of mostly men, Katie was a self-professed tomboy who took up playing the drums at the age of ten. She was playing in bands and recording music before she was old enough to leave home. These days, she is a highly sought-after session and live musician, well-respected in the community and unfazed by being a female drummer in a scene mostly full of men.

“I’ve always felt very comfortable in this scene,” Katie explains. “Until this year, I always worked with men. I’ve been fortunate to have known and worked with some great men in this business. That being said, I realize now that it’s special to be a woman, and it’s important to pay tribute to women who have been through life experiences and have come out on top, so to speak.”

That is exactly what she’s doing with her new release, Girls Like Us. Katie got the idea to write an album celebrating women when she read Andrea Buchanan’s book Note to Self: 30 Women on Hardship, Humiliation, Heartbreak, and Overcoming It All. “I was interested in reading stories about other women. The title track, ‘Girls Like Us,’ is about a woman who I related to at the time I read the story. Greta grew up somewhat like me, a tomboy. She had brothers, she played guitar, she loved sports, etc. She was a professional athlete and wrote of the difficulty she had going from [being] a professional athlete to a pregnant woman [and dealing with being] much larger than her former body. I was pregnant at the time and loved this story because she spoke of how superficial beauty can be because our physical bodies change at some point in our lives.”

Katie’s experiences as a new mom, especially balancing her family life with being a working musician, caused her to look at life a little differently and colored the perspective of the album. Katie’s songwriting is deeply rooted in storytelling; in many of them, she will introduce a character and simply share that person’s story. But a thoughtful, introspective sensibility pervades each tale, causing listeners to feel that maybe this story is about them, too.

Girls Like Us is Katie’s third album, and instead of settling into a comfortable, “more of the same” sort of groove as so many artists do, Katie is taking the opportunity to grow, change and learn. She has put a new band together and has stepped out from behind the drumset to play guitar, embracing the intimacy of performing as a singer-songwriter rather than just “one of the band.” You can catch a glimpse of this at the cd release party for Girls Like Us on January 6th, in the lobby of the Patchogue Theatre. You might just come away from the experience feeling ready to do a little growing, changing and learning yourself.

For more information and other upcoming dates, please visit katiepearlman.com.

The lighthearted hijinks that high school students engage in between classes appears to often serve as a kabuki-like mating dance that is only decodable by peers, or perhaps, simply as a way to blow off steam. On one such occasion, the adolescent banter proved to be the primordial spark that led a singularly exuberant student to a highly successful career as an international opera star. The student was Jeanette Vecchione. The place was Longwood High School (Middle Island). The time was her late-junior year, 2001.

Entering her perfunctory chorus class on a nondescript spring day, Ms. Vecchione (Miss Baxter at the time) was primarily known as a three-time all-county basketball player with a killer three-pointer. Being actively recruited by such hard-court powerhouses as Georgetown University and the University of Pennsylvania, her future path appeared set. Upon leaving her class, Ms. Vecchione crooned a short tumble of words in an over-the-top operatic fashion. This improvised aria was intended solely as high-spirited fodder for her friends’ amusement. Unbeknownst to the charismatic teen, her much-beloved chorus teacher, Ms. Levine, was listening. Ms. Levine requested that Ms. Vecchione return to the music room, and essentially told her preternaturally gifted student that she was an opera singer above all else. Dissecting her initial disbelief and reticence regarding the implications of her teacher’s words, Ms. Vecchione said, “I thought it was a joke… I was unsure, but I was slowly being enticed through listening to cds… Trying to imitate Maria Callas ignited my competitive spirit.”

Astonishingly, within a year of this synchronistic moment and only five months from when she began formal training in voice, Ms. Vecchione was pre-enrolled at Juilliard—and on a full scholarship, no less. Here, she engaged in the incremental alchemy that transmuted her identity from a shooting-guard to a serenading soprano. The acquisition of the skills and techniques intrinsic to success in the slowly demystifying world of opera was a hard-fought battle. While commenting on her nascent experiences at Juilliard, such as movement class and Italian diction class, Ms. Vecchione said, “The challenge didn’t intimidate me. It made me more excited to move forward.”
Ms. Vecchione’s six years at Juilliard (she also completed her Master’s degree there) were punctuated by a succession of unforeseen and galvanizing milestones. In her junior year, she was one of two female students selected for a tutorial with Luciano Pavarotti. While discussing the intoxicating experience of singing with the great master in his Manhattan apartment, she said, “He was so nice and modest…his apartment was all windows…he told me to look at Central Park and to imagine that it was my audience…It was amazing!” The vigorous demands of her Master’s program did not prevent her from simultaneously winning a bounty of prestigious competitions, including the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation’s Annual International Vocal Competition.

“Juilliard prepared me for a professional career,” is how Ms. Vecchione modestly explained her rapid ascent into opera’s equivalent of the big leagues. In recounting the venues and roles she has played since turning professional in 2009, one could easily surmise that there is a benevolent opera god opening doors while maintaining a humble averted glance. Over this brief time, she has performed in the ornate and storied opera houses of Paris, Vienna, Cologne and Buenos Aires. The “press” Ms. Vecchione has received for taking on such iconic works as the famed aria sung by The Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, has been stellar. Reviews from around the world have lauded her beautiful timbre, ease with high notes and wonderful acting ability. In January, she will perform in Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, and cover the role of Olympia, a mechanical doll. The venue will be La Scala, the hallowed ground of opera, located in Milan. Of this, Ms. Vecchione said excitedly, “More than anything else, this is my ultimate dream.”

This past January, Ms. Vecchione, 27, married her “precious” Breno. If traveling the tributaries of the international opera circuit was not enough, together they own and run Piccolo Gelato Bar & Cafe in Ridgefield, CT. When asked about her seemingly endless zeal for life,  she said, “I was always very eager…I always wanted to do everything.” Until Ms. Vecchione succeeds in “doing everything,” we’ll have to settle for her sinking game-winning three-pointers in pick-up games and hitting the high notes that leave opera fans around the globe stunned and breathless.

JeanetteVecchione.com for concert dates, recordings and booking inquires.

Whatever reservations I have about The Mountaintop, Katori Hall’s lively, if dramatically questionable, take on the legacy of Martin Luther King, its value as an acting showcase cannot be overstated. Angela Bassett, now nearly two decades past her What’s Love Got to Do With It movie breakthrough (and looking not a day older), takes the stage with such vibrancy and playfulness, her work serves as a lesson on how to chew the scenery and make it seem like the most delicious meal in the world.

That’s no knock on her co-star, Samuel L. Jackson, who gets to play a humanized icon: Martin Luther King, Jr. on the night before his assassination in Memphis. The Mountaintop catches MLK in his hotel room, tired, missing his wife and kids, jonesing for cigarettes and coffee, and flirting with Camae, the hotel maid who brings them. As said menial, Bassett gets to balance girlish zest with a naughtier candidness. Within moments, this maid can flip from swearing to teasing to fawning as she decides how to treat this political superstar she finds equally desirable as a man and role model.

So far so good. As King and Camae trade cautious repartee, we enjoy the pleasures of an old-fashioned “will they or won’t they” build up, made extra interesting by the fact that the man happens to be a flawed, complicated, but undeniable, American hero.

Midway, playwright Hall throws in a potential wow of a twist: The maid might not be who she says she is. Could she be a spy for the FBI? A traitor from King’s own ranks? A woman from his past? Any of these avenues might have been better than Hall’s silly choice, which causes the second section of Mountaintop to decline precipitously. Once the maid explains her true purpose, all tension is lost. Instead of a romance or a political showdown, we get speeches, bargaining and platitudes. Hall is obviously just biding her time until the finale. That’s when Camae offers a quasi-poetic rap (accompanied by undeniably dazzling visuals) that treats King to a sped-up history lesson of his own legacy.

What could have been a grown-up look at the complexity of MLK’s character descends into a sophomoric mush of anachronisms and stalling. Nevertheless, a half hour watching Angela Bassett trying to save the evening beats a half hour spent doing most other activities, so it’s your call whether your trek to The Mountaintop is worth the slide downhill.

Young, authentically hip, and good at what he does, it is no surprise that Tripoli Patterson’s Tripoli Gallery in Southampton is still going strong in its third year.

The 27-year-old professional surfer-cum-gallerist curated his first exhibition at the Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton in 2005 and it was a smashing success. Patterson followed with a handful of well-attended and profitable independent shows in barns around the Hamptons before opening his own space in 2009.

“I enjoyed the process, I enjoyed working with artists,” he said, explaining how a young professional surfer carved a path into the art world. “It was a nice balance with the surfing stuff,” Patterson added, noting that the exhibitions allowed him to step out of the spotlight and express himself through the creativity of others.

“I was magnetically attracted to these kinds of people,” he said, recalling that he befriended New Orleans painter Angelbert Metoyer after the two had a random conversation on the subway in New York City.

Once he started looking for artists, “That same thing happened on a greater scale.” Patterson explained he has built quality relationships with Tripoli Gallery’s stable of talent, including Lola Schnabel, Nick Weber, Felix Bonilla Gerena, Darius Yektai, Metoyer and Herbie Fletcher, among others. “I have faith in them as individuals and as humans… I’m very much in touch with all my artists.”

Patterson’s intimate approach is part of a greater philosophy for displaying and selling art. “You start learning the artists, and at the same time you start learning the collectors,” he said. “I like this idea that we’re going to be able to grow together. Not only artists, but collectors too.”

In the end, Patterson believes friendships with his artists and collectors will create something of a community and lead to a greater understanding and advancement of Tripoli Gallery’s mission.

“I like to treat my art as artifacts left behind that are going to say something about a generation,” Patterson said, pointing out that art is something of value and importance in an age of reality television and fast food. His father, Leonardo Patterson is a world-renowned expert and dealer of pre-Columbian art and antiquities, so it’s no coincidence that he considers the perception of art in the far future.

In the present, Patterson wants the work he displays to be as widely perceived as possible. His collectors come from all walks of life, though it’s no secret that Patterson frequently rubs elbows with the art world’s elite.

He has sold art to Larry Gagosian and he counts Julian Schnabel among his friends, but the young gallery owner never seems boastful or pretentious when discussing his famous friends. “It’s nice to be able to sell things to different demographics of people,” he said, explaining that his collectors aren’t just buying a piece of art from Tripoli Gallery. “They’re buying into what we are doing,” Patterson said.

A Dangerous Method
Smart and surprisingly funny, David Cronenberg’s latest forcefully captures the dramatic moment when Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) first began to explore the unconscious. Keira Knightley is electric as Sabina Spielrein, whose journey from patient-to-lover-to-therapist shook Jung and Freud’s friendship and changed the direction of their work.

Shame
Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender, the director/star team behind the unforgettable Hunger (2008), re-team for this emotionally blistering drama about a sex-addicted executive. Fassbender’s stunning performance as a man driven by unquenchable demons is matched by Carey Mulligan’s brilliance as the sister whose visit shakes his obsessive life. And her haunting rendition of “New York, New York” is worth the price of admission all by itself.

Melancholia
Lars von Trier’s visually stunning portrait of two sisters (Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg) dealing with the possible destruction of Earth is wildly ambitious, totally intoxicating and extremely moving.

The Skin I Live In
Chilling, funny, and romantic, Pedro Almodovar’s latest fractured melodrama stars Antonio Banderas as a famed plastic surgeon who mysteriously keeps a woman imprisoned. Almodovar’s tale is filled with shocking twists and turns, but the Spanish master skillfully leads us to a heartbreaking finale.

Take Shelter
Mesmerizing performances by emerging stars Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain highlight Jeff Nichols’ quietly devastating drama about an ordinary family man whose life and marriage are turned upside down when he begins having apocalyptic visions.

Drive
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (The Pusher Trilogy) boldly comes to America with this gripping new thriller. With a restrained but dazzling style, Refn coolly tells the saga of a professional driver (Ryan Gosling) who allows romantic feelings towards his neighbor (Carey Mulligan) to undermine the precision of his life.

Le Havre
An aging shoeshine man transforms his life, and the lives of his neighbors, when he decides to help a young African refugee in Aki Kaurismaki’s magical new movie. With a gentle touch and an irresistible rockabilly score, the Finnish master weaves this seemingly simple story into an unforgettable saga of redemption.

The Tree of Life
With each successive work, Terrence Malick moves further from traditional storytelling and closer to a cinema of poetry. His latest movie is at once his most personal and his most grandiose. The heart of The Tree of Life is a lyrical vision of his youth in 1950s Texas, but Malick complicates this with cosmic journeys into the afterlife and the age of dinosaurs.

The Future
Acclaimed filmmaker and author Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know) wonderfully returns with this whimsical tale of a thirty-something couple whose decision to adopt a cat throws their lives, and perhaps the entire universe, into a tailspin.

A Separation
In Asghar Farhadi’s powerful drama, an Iranian woman’s decision to leave her husband unwittingly causes two families to be caught in a shocking series of events that reveal both the frailty of human beings and the harshness of Iran’s legal system.

I am lonely tonight
In the shadows of wine drenched songs about heartbreak
In the extortion of my worldly occupations
In the flicker of a fire that sees no lovers
In the melancholy of the accordion
I am lonely tonight

I am lonely tonight
For you, my love, who I should not have left in New York
Who’s name I hear when someone says “Paris”
Whose voice is a baptism
I am lonely for the eyes that bring the mountain vista to life

I am lonely tonight
In my singular warehousing of the world’s obscure places
And the songs that spring from them
In languages I do not know though feel them all

I am lonely tonight
A whistle in the air
Drinking the memory of you

November selections for 92.9 and 96.9 WEHM New Release Tuesdays (airing every Tuesday from 9-10pm) demonstrate a knack for quality pop songwriting.

Former Oasis guitarist/songwriter Noel Gallagher has formed Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and their eponymous first album’s leadoff single is “If I Had a Gun…” The song makes it clear that Gallagher’s memorable, melodic pop songwriting that made Oasis famous is alive and well.

Singer/songwriter/pianist Julian Velard released his second major label album Mr. Saturday Night and the song “Love Again For The First Time” His mellow yet dramatic arrangement, starting with piano and augmented with orchestral flourishes make for a memorable listening experience.

Irish alt-pop phenoms Snow Patrol keep the engine revving with their new album Fallen Empires and the track “Called Out in the Dark.” Declaratory yet dark, the song features pronounced electronic touches with strong vocals and a complex arrangement filled with counterpoint.

Hearing is Believing
the PULSE iTunes store is now open!
Click on our iTunes store to test drive these albums and more. If you like what you hear, you can purchase right there! Film playlists and other music is also available. Ever wonder how PULSE people handle the late nights? Take a listen to our Deadline Playlist and find out! lipulse.com and iTunes—we’re here for your listening pleasure.

Here’s a rich harvest of acoustic-based CDs from troubadours and singer-songwriters.

Steve Earle
I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive
(New West)

On his two previous releases, Townes, a tribute to Townes Van Zandt, and Washington Square Serenade, a tribute of sorts to his adopted home Greenwich Village, Steve Earle seemed to be looking outside of himself for inspiration. Now, with the aid of T-Bone Burnett, Earle is once again clearly looking within. With many of his demons wrestled to the ground, Earle seems more content; yet mortality, injustice and frustration still seethe just below the surface. With this album, Earle continues to move toward living legend status.

Gillian Welch
The Harrow & the Harvest
(Acony)

Like Steve Earle, Gillian Welch finds comfort and inspiration in the simple sounds of American roots music. She and David Rawlings wrote all the songs and support themselves with simple instrumentation to make music sometimes sounding like outtakes from a Carter Family session or a Smithsonian field recording. Welch finds the unadorned heart of great American country music, making the eight-year wait between solo albums worth it.

Laura Marling
A Creature I Don’t Know
(Ribbon Music)

While not around as long as Steve Earle and Gillian Welch, in a short time, Laura Marling is already at the heights of the singer-songwriter scene and, along with a handful of other UK artists, solidified a folk revival in England. While comparisons to Joni Mitchell and even Jane Siberry are valid, Marling clearly is making a new kind of acoustic music. This new album continues the growth she displayed on her previous I Speak Because I Can from last year. Like Mumford & Sons, Marling may find herself with fans beyond the acoustic fringe.

Greg Brown
Freak Flag
(yepRoc)
Greg Brown is a legendary musician and songwriter. While he is often referred to as a folk artist, Brown’s musical gifts run deeper and richer than any one genre. His gravelly voice, prosaic stories and dramatic performing style are all in evidence on this album, once again perfectly produced by Bo Ramsey, one of the most underrated record producers in music today.

Eliza Gilkyson, John Gorka, Lucy Kaplansky
Red Horse
(Red House)
A musical cousin to Kaplansky’s Cry, Cry, Cry project with Richard Shindell and Dar Williams, Red Horse is a collaboration of like-minded singer-songwriters, Eliza Gilkyson, John Gorka and Lucy Kaplansky, whose voices and personalities effortlessly blend. Featuring mostly original compositions from the three and bracketed by a cover of Neil Young’s “I Am A Child” and the traditional “Wayfaring Stranger,” the release will make one feel like old friends have stopped by for an evening.

Hearing is Believing
the PULSE iTunes store is now open!
Click on our iTunes store to test drive these albums and more. If you like what you hear, you can purchase right there! Film playlists and other music is also available. Ever wonder how PULSE people handle the late nights? Take a listen to our Deadline Playlist and find out! lipulse.com and iTunes—we’re here for your listening pleasure.

In kitchen parlance, Klyph Black is finally out of the weeds. After years on the road, the easygoing, soft spoken founder of Rumor Has It and bassist/vocalist for Grateful Dead offshoots The Zen Tricksters and Jam Stampede has found the spare time and spare parts to casually cook up a punchy, textured and nuanced record with his East Hampton-based musical partner Tali “Icepack” Jackson.

“I’ve known Tali for a long time,” said Klyph as he traced the tangled genealogy of his new project. “There was this band that I used to go see with my mom and Tali was the drummer. This was in East Hampton; I was like 14 years old. Years later, we started jamming together at the [Stephen] Talkhouse. And it just happened out of osmosis.”

BK2SQ1 [Back to Square One] came together in a series of happy accidents and benign defaults. In sessions reminiscent of the homegrown, organic vibe of the Stones’ Exile on Main Street and The Band’s Music From Big Pink, Black and his loose band of brothers have made a record with warm grooves, sharp songwriting and an earthy, restrained musicianship that speaks to the vortex of Montauk voodoo from which it came.

“There were other people originally involved,” explained Black with a self-deprecating smirk and a shrug. “Other guitar players were supposed to come down and didn’t. So I played guitar. Other guys were supposed to come down to sing. They didn’t come down. So I sang. That’s how the thing fell together.”

As the project gained steam, other cats did start to show, including Charles Neville. The New Orleans legend played on a handful of tracks, including “Gumbeau Sally,” which gets the French Quarter, garden at midnight, Tom Waits treatment with plenty of Neville’s thick horns and inventive, multi-layered percussion from Jackson. “Lovers Paradise” is another major standout with its slinky Bo Diddley beat, airy guitar washes and slicing rhythms. “Lazy River” is all heart and tradition, with warm Zydeco inflections and bittersweet Delta sadness. “Boscarno” is balls to the wall, with Black doing double duty—first laying down Funkadelic James Brown licks and then channeling Albert King as he shreds over the top.

“All these other guys kept coming and going,” Black laughs. “I just kept playing, and kept picking up things here and there. And this is eventually what came out of it. This…gumbo!”

With the Zen Tricksters, Black has seen the world. Yet as an East End lifer, he also knows what it’s like to hunker down for long Montauk winters. His latest music reflects this paradox; it reads like a well-worn, trusted book of maps, but one in which all the roads soak up what they see of the country in Kerouacian swells of beauty and eventually circle all the way back to “The End”—for now.

“Going on the road is great because you go places you’d never dream to go,” said Black of his extensive touring career. “But there’s an energy [out East], without a doubt. There’s a lot of creativity. A lot of people doing a lot of creative stuff.”

Until the road calls once again, you can count Klyph Black and Icepack Jackson among them.

Catch Klyph Black and Tali “Icepack” Jackson and their band on Saturday November 19th 8pm at Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett.

Buy the album BK2SQ1 from iTunes

Patti Tana is Professor Emerita of English at Nassau Community College and the 2009 Walt Whitman Birthplace Long Island Poet of the Year. Any Given Day (Whittier Publications, Inc., 2011) is her eighth collection of poems. Visit pattitana.com.

Aspects of legendary timekeeper Roger Earl’s life may evoke the somewhat cartoonish archetype of the “British drummer who emerged in the 1960s,” but having an outsized personality, massive musical chops and stretches of hard living on his résumé are only part of his story. A brief look at the arc of his journey from London to Long Island reveals an individual with an ever-expanding appreciation of balance and a hardwired predisposition to continually evolve. Maintaining a keen sense of humor and a fiercely positive attitude appears to have served Mr. Earl and those in his magnetic orbit very well.

During his formative years, Roger was called a “noisy little sod” by his mum. This moniker, which was really a term of endearment, appears to have been prescient as well. In his early teens, Roger was transformed by the music of Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Muddy Waters. It was during this same period that his passion for drums first achieved critical mass.

This passion, or “just pushing the envelope” as Roger called it, propelled him to an audition for Jimi Hendrix when he was barely twenty years old. Even though the spirited young drummer did not get this prestigious gig, his perpetual forward momentum ushered him to the drum chairs of Savoy Brown and Foghat as well as to fantasy-filled live engagements backing such immortals as Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. Foghat’s platinum success with a live cover of “I Just Want to Make Love to You” led to a band invitation to Willie Dixon’s home and as Roger described it “a night of great food and music in which Willie held court.”

At the height of Foghat’s fame in the 1970s, Roger’s rather unconventional lifestyle consisted of non-stop tours of the arena circuit, driving very fancy sports cars, out-running groupies and “generally having too much fun.”  Roger was also constantly engaged in the organic process of jamming which yielded such monstrous hits as “Slowride.”

Forty years can pass with little change. Foghat has recently released a blistering new blues CD Last Train Home. When asked if the track “495 Boogie” is an homage to the LIE, Roger replied slyly, “of course it is.” As this writer can attest, Foghat’s live shows remain an intoxicating mix of bare bone blues power, virtuosic musicianship and communal rapture.

Roger’s personal life has undergone a more profound evolution. While he still rocks hard, his life now revolves around his three grown daughters, six grandchildren, and his wife of six years, Linda Earl, who is not only his spouse, but also Foghat’s manager and Roger’s “best friend.”

While discussing the sense of tranquil domesticity he derives from living on a houseboat on the island’s north fork, Roger said, “I consider myself a proud Long Islander before anything else.” Here he indulges in such passions as fishing, gardening and cooking. Roger transforms his organic haul into a meal for his best friend, assorted grandchildren and himself on a regular basis.

In 2005, the Earls, in conjunction with California wine maker and über Foghat fan Steve Rasmussen, formed Foghat Cellars. Inspired by a recent Foghat show he had seen, Mr. Rasmussen approached the Earls and soon afterwards, velvety cabernets and chardonnays bearing the Foghat name were being produced. While discussing the immensely satisfying California-based enterprise, Roger said, “I would love to expand to Long Island as well.”

When asked how he handles the inevitable challenges that life offers up, Roger laughed and paraphrased a randy quote of Rudyard Kipling’s from The Man Who Would Be King: “You shove a ramrod up your jacksie and bluff it out.” He added more seriously, “you learn from life and you try to put it in order.” Roger’s personal and professional lives have certainly achieved order and balance. When the shirt a DJ in The Simpsons is wearing and the bottle of wine in the living room rack are both emblazoned with the Foghat logo, it is clear evidence that Roger’s unique brand of balance continues to permeate the culture as well.

Go to foghat.net for CDs, wine and tour schedule. Rock Legends Cruise December 1st- 5th departs from Fort Lauderdale. This interview took place in Mario’s of East Setauket.

Buy Foghat’s album Last Train Home from iTunes

Latino Art Takes Over

Nassau County Museum of Art is showcasing Latino art in three exhibitions on view through November 27. The group show featuring contemporary Latin American Art, Exploraciones Contemporáneas, includes art by Vik Muniz of Brazil, Cuban-American DEMI, Manuel Esnoz of Argentina and Darío Escobar of Guatemala. Painting, photography, sculpture and mixed media are part of the show. A solo show by Rimer Cardillo features mixed media photography and site-specific artworks the artist calls “cupí” (from the native Guarani word for anthill). Rimer Cardillo: Journadas de la memoria includes a full-gallery cupí installation, “Birds of Clay, Oil and Ashes Cupí.” Also at the museum is Francisco Goya: Los Caprichos. The exhibition features a full set of historic etchings by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828). Published in 1799, the series is considered “one of the most influential series of graphic images in the history of Western art,” according the museum.

Nassau County Museum of Art, One Museum Drive, Roslyn Harbor.
(516) 484-9337, nassaumuseum.org.

Leaping from Nature

Nature never looked like this before. Or, at least, not exactly like the art on display in the exhibition, Re-Natured: Cui Fei and Roy Nicholson. Both artists use nature as a springboard to make their art. From there, all bets are off. Nicholson is an English-born painter who is inspired by lush gardens. Paintings are abstract with elements of representational forms. Nicholson creates a painting each week to capture the fleeting atmosphere of “gloaming” (twilight). A separate series portrays poisonous plants. Cui is a contemporary installation artist who incorporates Chinese history and calligraphy into her work. Born in China, she abstracts the graceful characters of language while using natural materials such as sand, tendrils and thorns to create art without identifiable references. Re-Natured: Cui Fei and Roy Nicholson is on view from November 12 to December 17 at the Staller Center’s University Art Gallery at Stony Brook University. An artist reception is planned for November 19 from 7 to 9pm.

Staller Center, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook. (631) 632-7240, stallercenter.com/gallery.

From the earliest of times, rebellion has been one of man’s most powerful motives. And as a motive, rebellion has triggered changes in humanity that range in size and scope across cultural, political and religious delineations. Evidence of a rebellion can be as significant as a revolution and as profound as a spiritual epiphany. Art that is testimony to any type of rebellion, inspiring both intellectual and emotional changes, is central to cataloguing our world’s development over time.

Last month, ART (that matters) gallery (Oyster Bay) opened the Rebellion as Motive show in conjunction with Long Island Pulse Magazine. The show was juried and curated by Pulse’s own Nada, publisher and editor. Conceptually, the prospectus called for works that reflect humankind’s constant dance with rebellion vis-à-vis art—either celebrating it in pop culture or by cautioning against it, as images in media show leaders scourging their own people.

The Rebellion as Motive show was intended to be an exhibition of works that convey these wide-ranging attitudes for and against rebellion. Of the countless entries, around twenty were selected to be in the show. The collection displayed was a cross section of styles, media and message, from specific and literal, to abstract and metaphorical. Winners were selected based on relevance to the show, execution of work, originality and composition. The winners, shown here, were selected for surpassing these criteria as well as for outstanding viewer responses at the opening reception.

ART (that matters) is an artists’ collective mounting continuous exhibitions in addition to offering art instruction and informal gatherings. The works awarded in the show are distinguished as first, second and third place (as below). Future shows have yet to be determined, but will be announced via the gallery’s website (artthatmatters.com) as well as other local channels (like this magazine).

Winners:
1. “Paper Narcissus,” by Chuck von Schmidt, is a full-scale replica of a man “mooning” and inviting onlookers. Inside the derrière is a TV screen that shows a live feed of the person caught in the moment of voyeurism.

11. “By All Means: Exit Stage Right,” is a 30” x 36” oil on canvas by Damon Tommolino

111. A tie: “Vigil Keepers,” by Linda Louis and “Clash Within Cultures,” by Jeanine Klein, both mixed media

Two of the world’s boldest and most adventurous filmmakers, Pedro Almodóvar and Lars von Trier, return in the waning days of 2011 with exciting new films that rank among the year’s best.

Pedro Almodóvar (Volver, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) has always joyously delighted in confounding our expectations. He uses the conventions of classic melodrama, but playfully subverts them with crazy plot twists, madcap characters, genre-bending and gender-bending. The result is a highly-sophisticated blend that allows him to combine the pure storytelling pleasure of Hollywood movies with the challenging ideas of modern art house cinema. His latest work, The Skin I Live In, is a Hitchcockian thriller about Dr. Robert Ledgard (a great performance from Antonio Banderas, working with Almodóvar for the first time in over twenty years), a wealthy and respected plastic surgeon who is keeping a beautiful young woman named Vera (Elena Anaya) imprisoned in his house. As Robert compulsively watches over his captive, and obsesses over every detail of her appearance, we might think this is a twisted version of the legend of Pygmalion: A man trying to craft the perfect woman. However, Almodóvar’s mesmerizing film proves far more complex. With consummate skill, he weaves a stunning drama that is both a gripping tale of vengeance and a thought-provoking meditation on our complicated relationships with our own bodies.

No one else makes movies like Lars von Trier (Antichrist, Breaking the Waves, Dogville), which might delight or depress depending on your opinion of this most controversial of modern filmmakers.

His latest work is no exception. Melancholia is a mad fever dream of a movie, evoking a contentious swelter of emotions and ideas through gorgeous imagery, surging music and fantastic performances. The film is built around two catastrophes: An all-too-human wedding that goes horribly wrong and the possible destruction of the Earth in a collision with the planet Melancholia. The first half of von Trier’s epic documents the hilarious unraveling of Justine’s (Kirsten Dunst) wedding. Despite the best efforts of Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), Justine’s highly responsible sister, long-simmering family resentments and Justine’s ambivalence send this carefully planned event careening wildly out of control. The cherry on the top of this disastrous celebration is the discovery of an unusually bright light in the night sky, which proves to be Melancholia, a planet that is going to pass disturbingly close to Earth. The film grows quieter but more intense as von Trier follows the differing reactions of Claire and Justine to the possibility that life as we know it may not last much longer.

Kirsten Dunst was deservedly named Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for this performance. Dunst and Gainsbourg are ably supported by a great ensemble that includes Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt.

Lars von Trier has always been fascinated by the strange combination of irrationality, self-destructiveness and nobility that defines our species. This alternately side-splittingly funny and heartbreaking work is one of his finest explorations of that tangled mess known as the human condition.

When knee deep in November, the idea of June rises in us much like summer comes on to schoolchildren and fills their nights with wonder and infinite longing. There’s something sublime in the architecture of the month, something that stirs the imagination and whets the palate. We make plans in June. We set forth and leave the shore. We dream about it in the onset of winter.

Guitarist/composer Mark Yodice has been making and arranging music since he learned to play at thirteen. His newest collection of original material, …of raging waters (released recently under the pseudonym the june rise), marks the arrival of a serious force in the landscape of contemporary instrumental music with ten gorgeous compositions that move through a myriad of emotional and sonic territories with deft skill, invention and grace.

Like a Rothko painting in which the sheer immensity of color masks the individual strokes that create it, Yodice’s work shines because of intricate playing beneath a gigantic artistic vision. Though he refers to it as “unapologetically bizarre” (which it is, at times, in a very beautiful and haunting way), one can hear the singularity of the various influences—Hungarian composers Béla Bartók and György Ligeti, 1950s jazz, South American rhythms, African kora music, funk, Americana and Björk, to name a few. They come together to create something new but comfortingly familiar, something from the future but stunningly evocative. The whole is greater than the parts, yes, but in Yodice’s music the parts are ever so important as well and (lucky for us) incredibly satisfying to the ear.

The paradox introduced early on in “The Good Lion” is echoed throughout the collection. The regality that charms us with primal beauty sitting in repose might tear us apart if we get too close. And so the story goes. Hushed harmonics (like the inside of a clock) are juxtaposed with booming percussion in “Pull the Arrow,” the warm guitar’s lullaby drizzled with lonely digitized feedback in “30 Feet Tall,” and on and on. One particularly poignant moment comes at the end of “Loveliest,” when the sweet arpeggiated melody is transformed into a sprightly jigsaw of rhythm and repetition. We eagerly follow the dizzying swoon.

The collection’s final two tracks “Brooklyn Sleep Prayer” and “Montauk, Summer Rain” embody the trajectory of Yodice’s life and career thus far. He was born in Queens and lived on eastern Long Island for several years before settling in Brooklyn. As it was for the New York City/Long Island poets and painters who came before him, this dichotomy of urban dreams and country dreams is integral in the formation of his artistic vision and sound, and at the core of …of raging waters’ inimitable beauty.

You can catch Mark Yodice at Rockwood Music Hall in NYC, November 5 at 4pm. Music from …of raging waters is currently available through the artist until an official release in February of 2012. facebook.com/thejunerise.

Stony Brook University graduate Marielle Frey thought it was unfair nails always get hammered into wood, sheetrock or metal—why not reverse the relationship and give nails a chance to do some whacking?

That train of thought inspired Frey as she made “Nail Karma,” a six-foot tall hammer made out of hundreds of nails welded together. It’s currently University President Dr. Samuel Stanley’s favorite piece in the second annual juried art competition at Sunwood, Stony Brook’s off-campus conference venue overlooking the Long Island Sound in Old Field Village. A small part of Sunwood also serves as the home of Stanley and his wife, Dr. Ellen Li.

The conference center’s walls were bare when the couple first arrived at Sunwood in 2009. Robert Kenny’s art filled the cedar shake-sided mansion when his wife, Shirley Strum Kenny, served as president. But the Kenny’s took it when she retired.

Stanley and his wife had not seriously collected art before arriving at Stony Brook, but he liked what he saw at his 2009 inauguration. “I was impressed by the quality of what was done,” Stanley said. “It combined well with the need I had when I first came to Sunwood.”

Stanley saw the white walls as an opportunity to showcase student art, which only occasionally makes it into off-campus galleries and exhibition spaces, and is sometimes overshadowed by the science and research accomplishments at the institution.

A few layers of review stand between student projects and a coveted placement at Sunwood. Throughout the year, Stony Brook’s art faculty picks out exceptional pieces for a small committee of university affiliates to review, said university spokesperson Lauren Sheprow. Then, in April, the committee whittles down the work to a best-of-the-best collection for the president and his wife to choose from, explained Carol Marburger, a committee member. Marburger is the wife of the late Jack Marburger, the former university president, Brookhaven National Laboratory director and science advisor for President George W. Bush.

Committee members select art based on personal preference. But the group also tries to find pieces that are diverse in terms of media and subject. Sunwood’s historical style factors into their decision-making process, too. “There are pieces we love and pieces we appreciate but would not want to live with every day,” Marburger wrote, adding that her favorite is a linocut print called “String Cheese Trapeze” by Stephanie DeSimone.

Having a work featured in Sunwood is a distinction in the Stony Brook art department and means major exposure for burgeoning artists. Between 30 and 50 events are held in the mansion each year, with a maximum of 125 guests at each function. “People have sold their work from there,” Frey said. “It’s a great opportunity to say your work is there.”

Frey’s work is on display with other standout pieces including life-size topless dancing women painted in primary colors, a ceramic piano key sculpture and a small picture of two soldiers standing on top of a humvee in Iraq. The future Stony Brook master’s candidate scored a sale after “Nail Karma” made it into Sunwood. A visitor who Frey declined to name commissioned her to make a smaller version of the work as well.

“I was shocked everyone loved it so much,” Frey said. “I think people can see the obvious relationship between the material and object, and a lot of people can relate to it because it’s about karma, and doing things people say you can’t.”

Pat Snyder is a master of the transition. She was an art teacher in the Bridgehampton School District when she posed a simple question. The answer led to a new career and the expansion of the East End Arts Council. Inc. in Riverhead. The question was this: “Do you want to offer art classes?”

At the time, the non-profit organization was poised to morph after absorbing the Eastern Suffolk School of Music, which had just closed. Art wasn’t on their minds but it was on Snyder’s. She began teaching art and quickly became Education Director. Five years later, she became the Executive Director and never looked back.

Fast forward 10 years. The education department has a full slate of adult and children’s art classes. There are music classes, music ensembles, an artist-in-residency program and judged art exhibits. There’s an on-site gallery spanning three rooms. Art shows are also held in three satellite locations. Classes and lectures take place in two locations—Riverhead and Greenport. Forty five students blossomed into around 500. Membership has doubled.

“We change lives through the arts,” Snyder said. “We understand the value of the arts to enrich lives and strengthen communities. We develop innovative programs that reach across demographic lines. We utilize the arts to provide support to individuals and communities.”

EEAC is on another cusp and Snyder is ready to shepherd in the changes. A major award is being extended this month. A new website is on the horizon. A new name and logo was recently unveiled to reflect the organization’s new attitude, Snyder said. Now named East End Arts, the change reflects EEA’s commitment to bringing arts and culture to communities beyond their Riverhead headquarters. The expansion coincides with the organization’s 40th anniversary, Snyder pointed out.

“I believe there is no limit to what the East End Arts can accomplish,” Snyder said. “We have a strong presence in Riverhead, a growing presence in Greenport and a goal for more visibility on the South Fork… We offer broad education programs, community development and cultural tourism. We’re moving incrementally but we’re moving forward.”

Successes include the Winterfest (Jazz on the Vine) concert series, the Community Mosaic Street Painting Festival, Renaissance Kids Camp and The Teeny Awards (high school drama award program), Snyder said. She initiated all of these programs. Another success is the Harvest Gospel concerts series are celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

“I get joy from developing innovative programs and I’m provided the freedom to do so,” Snyder said.

When she can break away from her executive director duties, Snyder enjoys picking up a paint brush or pencil. Taking the occasional drawing or painting class allows her to reconnect and rejuvenate. But it’s her start as an art teacher that provides an intimate understanding of the role the arts play in learning and in life, she said. Watching students and adults benefit from learning art or music brings personal fulfillment.

“My satisfaction comes from seeing the successes of the students and artists we serve,” she said. “The scholarship students who are now professional musicians or are attending college in the area of arts. Musicians that gained visibility through Winterfest and benefited with a full schedule of new gigs. Visual artists that began their career in a gallery exhibit and now have broad visibility. The list goes on and on.” eastendarts.org.

On a surprisingly hot, sunny late-September afternoon in London, Ray Davies is in a rare mood, as he comfortably answers questions about his stewardship of The Kinks and the songs he wrote for them. Along with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who, The Kinks are part of the quartet of the greatest English rock bands of the 1960s and, maybe, one of the four greatest rock bands of all time.

Also impressive are the group’s ambitious, yet unpretentious concept albums, beginning in 1968 with The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, and followed by Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One and Muswell Hillbillies.

In the mid-70s, the band seemed to find a whole new audience with a heavier rock sound and quickly charted with such albums as Sleepwalker, Misfits, Low Budget, Give The People What They Want and State of Confusion.

The legacy of The Kinks is incalculable. Trying to come to grips with it himself, Davies is revisiting the group’s music on his last two solo albums.

The first of these two recent albums The Kinks Choral Collection (Decca), with The Crouch End Festival Chorus, features the group’s music re-imagined in a choral setting and the second, See My Friends (Decca), is a collection of Kinks songs that Davies rerecorded with such guests as Bruce Springsteen, Mumford & Sons, Lucinda Williams, Jackson Browne, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol and Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins.

As for See My Friends and specifically the songs he wrote, Davies said, “It’s important to me to step back and let them be discovered and given a new lease on life by the other artists. Then I kind of step in and take my place as one of the performers. It’s a very invigorating and rewarding experience.”

Ultimately, the process gave Davies a new appreciation for the songs. “Because of the nature of the process—getting other people to interpret the songs—it made me rethink the songs and re-evaluate the songs,” Davies explained. “For the most part, I think without a doubt all the songs hold up as a result.” Davies talked about his songwriting approach and why he thinks it’s worked. “If you write about the world you’re living in and you’re honest with it, the songs will be durable,” he began. “If people try to be fake and manipulate songs—and a lot of people try to do that and second-guess people—it never works.” In the end, he said it comes down to, “honesty, integrity and good vision.”

As for favorite cover versions of his songs, Davies cited Van Halen’s cover of “You Really Got Me” closely followed by his ex-wife Chrissie Hynde’s band The Pretenders’ cover of “Stop Your Sobbing.” I mentioned to Davies that the song “I’m Not Like Everybody Else” appeared on a recent Kinks reissue, to which he commented, “I love that song. It says a lot about me as a person and my attitude toward the world. It says a lot about people who retain their individuality, which in this world is increasingly difficult.”

Of all of his songwriting attributes, it’s Davies’ sense of humor that is most appreciated. “I think it’s so important to keep a sense of perspective and humor,” he stated. “It’s a cure-all. The modern world is full of crisis. Humor can be very political. “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” was a very political statement in many respects, but I did it with humor.”

As for future projects, Davies mentioned the possibility of a film on The Kinks directed by Julian Temple. He said that he’d like to do it, especially for the sake of his brother Dave who suffered a stroke in 2004. When I asked him how Dave is doing, he said, “I think he’s doing all right. He’s just a troublesome brother. What can you do? Families!” This was the only point in our talk where Davies became uncomfortable and clearly wanted to move on to another topic. It’s obvious friction still exists between the two, as could be the case with any family, especially one with two of the most famous brothers in rock history. In recent years however, both seem interested in reuniting The Kinks. When talking about the new songs that he is writing, Davies is ambiguous as they related to a Kinks reunion. He stated, “I’ve not decided who will be the personnel.”

Davies recently performed the entire The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and a 100-person choir. Referring to it as “one of my proudest moments,” he said he might go into the studio and record it. He is also working on another memoir, due out next fall, and there is interest in turning his first memoir, X-Ray, into a biopic. In addition, there is a possibility of making a musical based on the music of The Kinks. Davies is considering more re-interpretations of Kinks songs as well, but in a more “stripped down” style. He would also like to do more collaboration, but this time, make them songwriting collaborations. He remarked, “It’s quite lonely being a writer (laughs). It’s really nice when you work with other people.”

Ray Davies will appear at The Paramount in Huntington on November 16th and at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan on November 20th. Steve Matteo wrote the liner notes for The Kinks UnKovered (Paradiddle Records).

There’s something about southern women. Audiences can’t seem to get enough of sassy wisecracks, big emotions and drawling parlor talk, as evidenced by the perennial appeal of such plays as Crimes of the Heart and Steel Magnolias. Add to that genre the comedies of Jones Hope Wooten, whose much-produced The Dixie Swim Club reaches Islip’s Town Hall, Nov. 11-20, courtesy of the Synergy Ensemble Theatre Company.

Spanning 33 years in the friendships of five ladies, Club touches on the usual and universal themes: Marriage, divorce, motherhood and aging. Reached the day before the first read-through, director David Stempler told Pulse he chose Club because of its heart and humor and because it featured “mainly women—which is easier to cast in this area.” No stranger to distaff drama, Stempler previously guest-directed The Cemetery Club, Proof and Three Tall Women for Synergy.

A college theater major and former theater teacher, Stempler, now 65, directed in Louisiana and worked in concert lighting before settling on Long Island. “I’m originally from Florida,” he said, “but I came here to help a friend of mine close a business down, and I just stayed because I really like it here.” Being in theater, naturally he has a day job: Managing the World Gym in Wantagh.

Still, the most surprising thing about Dixie Swim Club is the play’s author, Jones Hope Wooten. No such person exists or, more correctly, the name stands for three different playwrights—Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten, who write collaboratively and publish prolifically under the “Jones Hope Wooten” moniker. Recalling the era of similarly pseudonymous dramatist Jane Martin, JHW have enjoyed crowd-pleasing success with such red-state comedies as Dearly Beloved, Christmas Belles and The Hallelujah Girls. Though Wooten’s works have yet to reach Broadway, the trio’s website boasts a history of more than 1,200 productions, including the recent world premiere of Mama Won’t Fly, in Conroe, Texas.

THIS MONTH ON BROADWAY
Continuing the onslaught from October, this month brings a slew of Broadway openings, including a revival of the pop-gospel tuner Godspell (by the nice Jewish boy who turned Wicked, Stephen Schwartz); Seminar, a new dark comedy from Theresa Rebeck; and off-Broadway transfers of Venus in Fur and Other Desert Cities, by David Ives and Jon Robin Baitz, respectively. Look for a Steppenwolf Theater revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to hit the Broadway boards, as well.

Streaks of color, miniature trees and accurate starry skies can be expected in Jason Paradis’s art. So can installations featuring taut colored strings that create zooms of motion. Installations are what happens to paintings when they morph from idea to flat art to three dimensions occupying a swath of space.

“I use installation when the flat work seems to have more of a voice,” said Paradis surrounded by his paintings and a single installation at St. Joseph’s College. “Sometimes it seems like there’s something dimensional about it and it needs to be more than remaining a painting.”

Installations typically feature a cadre of strings zigging and sometimes zagging from wall-installed paintings. The vivid-colored strings stretch to connect with sculptures installed on the floor or to a bench and create multi-level connections. Sculptures may feature hand-selected rock chunks that suggest a pristine mountaintop. Model-sized trees conjure an isolated majesty connecting to a sky filled with stars, galaxies and possibilities lying beyond what the naked eye can see.

“In my art, there’s a sense of contemplation or reverie that speculates on the fundamental mysteries,” Paradis said. “I used to go camping a lot as a kid growing up in Canada. Looking at the sky, questions emerged regarding the existence of something much larger than our immediate world.”

Starry night skies appear in many of Paradis’ paintings. Star placement is not random—each night sky is based on a specific date from the artist’s personal history, dates relating to art history or sometimes even dates relating to his art shows (among other catalysts). A computer program provides celestial locations from the past, present and future, he said. This visual information is projected and recreated in his art as a prominent underlying image. From there, layers of paint using multiple application methods move the scientific charting into art. Paintings are infused with texture. Different materials are layered into the painting to mirror the layers of meaning in the artwork, explained Paradis.

Implied motion zipping along at fast speeds may also have its origins in Paradis’ childhood memories of viewing the night sky. Witnessing a falling star, a companion suggestion the star may have perished eons ago and was only visible to them now. The implications made a lasting impact that can be felt in his art, Paradis revealed. Vivid colors are also important. Paradis mixes his paint colors to ensure hues applied are exactly what are needed.

Recently, Paradis’ art is being inspired by memories and histories other than his own. These new works are the subject of a solo show at the Sea Cliff Library. Jason Paradis: Recent Work is on view from November 1 to December 31. A reception is planned for December 11 from 2 to 4pm.

Paradis has exhibited at the Islip Art Museum and the Aldridge Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Connecticut. He’s exhibited in galleries in Canada and Scotland. Also, Nashville, Philadelphia, Brooklyn and more. A solo show, One Moment: Past, Present, Future, was presented at St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue in September. Paradis is a professor at St. Joseph’s College and SUNY Stony Brook. jasonparadisart.com.

PART TWO:

Jason Paradis’ creativity goes beyond his own art making. Paradis has been a curator for “In Process”—a studio residency program of the Carriage House at the Islip Museum—since 2008. When given a spot as guest curator at the OMNI Gallery in Uniondale, he decided to present a mini survey show of artists who participated in the “In Process” residency. Held in two parts, the exhibitions bring a slice of cutting-edge installations, art projects, video and mixed media art projects to Nassau County. The Carriage House at the Islip Art Museum is a year-round project space and artist residency.

PROCESSED: Four years of “In Process” Part 1: 2008-2009 is being held until November 13. Exhibiting artists are Melissa Brown, Marie Lorenz, Jason Nickel, Mike Paré and Shirley Wegner. Part 2: 2010-2011 is being held from November 13 to January 15, 2012. Exhibiting artists are Jeremy Earhart, Jonathan Ehrenberg, Yeon Jin Kim, Emily Noelle Lambert, Graham McNamara and Rob Swainston. A reception is planned for November 20 from 3 to 5pm.

OMNI Gallery is located at 333 Earle Ovington Blvd, Uniondale.

I have to admit it.  I was one of those kids who pigeonholed Collective Soul as a wanna-be Pearl Jam. And it was mostly because of the husky and (what I felt as) postured grunts and yawps of its lead singer, Ed Roland. I was young and, unbeknownst to me at the time, looking through boxes while shaping my aesthetic tastes.  In the 80s, I was into U2, The Cure, and (good night, sweet princes!) R.E.M.  I was all about New Wave.  And the 90s found me interested in the musical explorations of The Spin Doctors, Blues Traveler and the New York City jam scene.  If you weren’t a “cool” alternative band or weren’t improvising, I probably wasn’t listening.

You can imagine how surprised I was when a wonderfully-charming and personable Ed Roland confessed early on in a recent phone interview that he used to “sit around all day and play Cars riffs on the guitar” and how “Elton John is my hero.”  We continued to speak for a good twenty minutes about the beauty of INXS, R.E.M.’s recent breakup, early 70s Jackson Browne, and newer bands that spark his interest like The Head and The Heart.  I hid away a bit of pleasant embarrassment.  Did I expect some kind of self-absorbed rock god?  Perhaps a demagogue whose creed made lovers of true art and soul and originality cringe and fall to the ground in despair?

I dramatize.  I jest.  Forgive me.  I knew Ed would be cool.  You can’t be around playing music for that long and not have learned a thing or two.  (I want to publicly thank my friend and fellow Pulse writer Brian Kelly for that bit of wisdom/reminder.)

The reason we were on the phone is because Ed is about to perform in the New York City/Long Island area for two shows—one at The City Winery on October 23rd and the other at The Boulton Center in Bay Shore on Friday night, October 28th.  He has teamed up with longtime friend and Better Than Ezra front man Kevin Griffin on what is appropriately titled “The Southern Gentlemen Tour.”  If Kevin (who has a rockin’ voice, by the way) is half as kind and gracious as Ed is, audiences will certainly be witness to some genuine gentlemanly rapport up on the stage.  Ed says the gig is “a little like hanging out in our living room,” and I totally believe him.  They play each other’s songs (hits like Roland’s “Shine” and “The World I Know” and Griffin’s “Good” and “Desperately Wanting” will assuredly show up) and throw in a couple of covers too.

And speaking of bearing witness, I also learned that Ed “grew up in the church” back in Georgia.  His dad was a minister, so before Elton and Bernie it was all about church music.  That fact (paired with the southern roots = southern drawl), explains the emphatic pizzazz in his archetypal baritone rock voice.  While playing with the band and the frenetic maelstrom of guitars and noise it can spin, one might need to borrow some chops from experts who know how to tell a good story, so to speak—personalities who know how to share the good word with large groups of people.  That being said, I’m eager to hear the songs stripped down and the voice unburdened by a sometimes-distracting wall of sound.

The “About” page on the Southern Gentlemen website states that the tour “will make a dozen stops around the country, showcasing a different side of these artists: Intimate acoustic performances that are a unique departure from the rock bands they made famous.”  If you’re anything like me, you gravitate to these types of affairs because these are the kinds of evenings that surprise, delight, and maybe even teach us a thing or two about ourselves.  Listening to the music makers of our past make music in our present helps connect the disparate dots that make up our life—the assumptions that limit us and the ones that ultimately help us grow.

www.southerngentlementour.com

Here are some recent releases from artists stepping out in different directions.

Jeff Bridges
Jeff Bridges  
(Ramp/Blue Note)
On the heels of his Oscar-winning portrayal of Otis “Bad” Blake in Crazy Heart, Jeff Bridges now releases his second (first was Be Here Soon in 2000) solo album proving he really can write songs and sing. The Dude convincingly sings countrified songs of heartbreak, longing and love, against a perfect musical backdrop provided by producer T-Bone Burnett and a supporting cast including Roseanne Cash. Bridges is another in a growing list of film actors who makes authentically good music not musical vanity projects.

Tim Robbins and the Rogues Gallery Band
Tim Robbins and the Rogues Gallery Band
(429)
Like Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins is an actor who faithfully portrayed a musician in a movie (Bob Roberts) and on his debut album enlisted one of the great record producers of this or any generation (Hal Willner). Unlike Bridges’ release, though, this is more of a group project. Also, Robbins can trace his musical lineage back to his father, noted folksinger Gil Robbins. On the album, there are touches of Dylan, Springsteen, Tom Waits and Alejandro Escovedo, with Willner’s production maybe the real star of the show. While Robbins is not as convincing a singer as Bridges, his musical feel and songwriting ability bode well for future musical endeavors.

k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang
Sing It Loud
(Nonesuch)
With this new band, lang finds a collaborator as sympathetic as Tony Bennett who she successfully recorded and toured with about ten years ago. While there is a sometimes grittier rock edge to the music here, what’s more significant is how relaxed and at ease lang’s singing is. It’s hard to tell if this is one of those one-off projects, but one thing is for certain—this new group will sound great live.

Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi
Rome
(Lex/Capitol)
One of the most ambitious and beautiful albums of the year, Rome was obviously not built in a day; in fact, it took five years. Danger Mouse, who is hot off his collaboration with James Mercer as Broken Bells, teamed with Italian songwriter Luppi, with whom he has worked before, to make a dance-pop album for the wrap party of a Sergio Leone movie. Obviously inspired by the evocative soundtrack scores of Ennio Morricone and recorded at Morricone’s Ortophonic Studios (now called Forum Studios) in Rome, on vintage equipment, the album features vocalists Norah Jones and surprisingly, Jack White. Even with all the lush cinema musical concepts, the album holds together well as a collection of good pop songs.

Hearing is Believing
the PULSE iTunes store is now open!
Click on our iTunes store to test drive these albums and more. If you like what you hear, you can purchase right there! Film playlists and other music is also available. Ever wonder how PULSE people handle the late nights? Take a listen to our Deadline Playlist and find out! lipulse.com and iTunes—we’re here for your listening pleasure.

October picks for 92.9 and 96.9 WEHM New Release Tuesdays (airing every Tuesday from 9-10pm) features current artists wearing their classic influences on their sleeves.

Canadian singer/songwriter Feist has come out with her 5th longplayer Metals and the track “How Come You Never Go There.” It has barebones production, but less is more here, and the spare instrumentation is the perfect complement to her gorgeous, jazzy vocals.

Wildly productive alt-singer/songwriter Ryan Adams has just issued his 13th album (with and without The Cardinals) Ashes & Fire and the song “Lucky Now.” It has pronounced melancholia with a simple, sad chord progression and full-on heartache in lyric and vocal.

Rock ‘n roll/roots rock veteran Chris Isaak returns with the album Beyond the Sun and the track “Live It Up.” It’s an upbeat, exciting number with Isaak fully embracing an enthusiastic rockabilly standpoint. Dig the infectious early-rock boogie and old-school shouter vocals.

Hearing is Believing
the PULSE iTunes store is now open!
Click on our iTunes store to test drive these albums and more. If you like what you hear, you can purchase right there! Film playlists and other music is also available. Ever wonder how PULSE people handle the late nights? Take a listen to our Deadline Playlist and find out! lipulse.com and iTunes—we’re here for your listening pleasure.

Christie Leigh Babirad has been published in the Great South Bay Magazine for poetry and has written articles for Suite 101 Magazine. Currently she is working on a novel and a fourth screenplay. She credits a supportive family as an early influence and motivation to pick up the pen.

Early morning
The teal Long Island Sound
Soon to turn light blue
The dark blue clouds remain
The night hasn’t left quite yet
One lone star rests in the sky
A yellow diamond sun shines up above the brush
Rising
An icy chill pierces the heart
Everything new is everywhere
Someone is calling

For Warren Haynes to call himself and his new solo record “Man in Motion” is an epic understatement. As a member of the Allman Brothers Band, Phil Lesh and Friends, The Dead and his own band, Gov’t Mule, Haynes is a constant blur of musical activity and proficiency in the rock/jam band landscape.

Currently on tour in the northeast (he and his new band will play Huntington’s newly-minted music hall The Paramount on October 15), Haynes could easily claim the title of “hardest working man in show business” if he didn’t defer to his childhood hero first.

“James Brown was my first idol,” said Haynes as he discussed the deep soul and r&b influences of his most recent work and his musical roots growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. “It was a time when soul music dominated the airwaves. Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding…those were my heroes. They came before Cream and Jimi Hendrix for me. I was a singer first and soul music came before rock music. Then Sly and the Family Stone was the bridge between James Brown and Hendrix.”

Not long after came Haynes’ major musical turning point. With his passion for singing firmly rooted and his discovery of the guitar just blossoming, Haynes got turned on to the Allman Brothers.

“My older brother had the first Allman Brothers record so I was exposed to that at a very young age,” remembers Haynes. “I just fell in love with the guitar work between Duane [Allman] and Dickey [Betts] and Gregg’s [Allman] voice, just the overall sound of it.”

As a core member of one of jam rock’s iconic and legendary outfits, Haynes is continuously thrilled by the challenges and potential for new heights that the Allmans are capable of in any given musical moment.

“I’m really fortunate to be surrounded by all the musicians that I am surrounded by,” Haynes remarked humbly. “The cool thing about the Allman Brothers right now is that anybody on that stage is capable of doing something that surprises and inspires everybody else. That’s a pretty incredible thing.”

Like so many of his heroes, Haynes is particularly adept at incorporating other sounds and styles into his own approach. This puts him in that rare air where his playing pays crafty homage to the entire rock lexicon while simultaneously carving a singular, original space.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in his selections of other musicians’ material. Haynes is a prolific singer/player/songwriter in his own right, but he’s notorious for his excellent covers. In those spaces, whether with Gov’t Mule, the Allmans or The Dead, he’s a master of interpretation and his choices are thoughtful and powerful.

“Sometimes it might be a song that I’ve always wanted to play or sing,” said Haynes of his choices. “It’ll be a song that I wish I wrote that hits me real hard. Sometimes we completely change them; sometimes we just put our own stamp on them. Sometimes we’ll pick a tune for the shock value, something that people would just never expect us to do.”

With his mind, heart and hands in so many musical realms at once, the challenge for Haynes is to harness and solidify his musical sense of self; to carve plenty of space within his own construct and still allow the brilliance of others to move and shine through him.

“I hope I’m not copping out, but I feel like it’s a combination of the two,” Haynes said of his reconciliation of musical self sufficiency vs. musical selflessness. “Musicians sign on to be students forever. It gets harder and harder to add significant elements to your playing style the longer you play. But still, that’s what we’re here to do. Sometimes opening yourself up completely to what someone else has done is very therapeutic. At the same time, instrumentalists reach a point where they just want to play like themselves.”

In the end, Haynes knows instinctively that this is all musical subtext. The real story lies in the sound—and above all—in the relationship between that sound and the listener.

“I think the audience can tell when the musicians are having fun,” Haynes said. “They can also tell when the band is experimenting and digging into new territory. The audience feels a part of that and rightly so, because without an audience, there’s only so far you can go. With an audience, the sky’s the limit.”

If there’s one thing that Haynes knows nothing about, it’s limits. Whether he’s singing and playing soulful r&b, summoning the hounds of hell with his devilish slide playing, or pushing co-conspirator Derek Trucks and the rest of the Allmans as far as they can go, Haynes is determined to continue on his path of growth and discovery, with much more playing ahead of him than behind him.

“I think the next thing is getting Gov’t Mule back together,” said Haynes. (The Mule has a two night New Year’s Eve run lined up at the Beacon Theatre in New York City). “When I do another solo record, I think it will be more singer/songwriter, more of an acoustic record. I’d like to take that to another level. I’d love to make a blues record, I’d love to make a jazz instrumental record. Personally, I feel as though there are a lot of records that I want to make that I haven’t made yet.”

Warren Haynes Band will play The Paramount in Huntington on October 15, and Gov’t Mule returns to the Beacon Theatre for their annual New Year’s Eve shows December 30 and 31. For more info, visit warrenhaynes.net.

Buy Warren Hayne’s album Man in Motion from iTunes

A recent survey revealed that 40% of Americans believe that the rapture is coming soon. In the South, it is over 50%; and that doesn’t even include others, like peak oil believers, who hold non-religious theories of why the world as we know it is about to end. It’s easy to laugh at them, but if you truly believe that civilization is in its final days, is there anything you wouldn’t do to prepare yourself and your loved ones?

In addition to being one of the year’s best movies, Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter is a rare, serious work that explores this mystery from the inside. At first glance, Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon) seems like a pretty regular guy. He lives in Ohio with his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain), and his six-year-old daughter Hannah, who is deaf. Curtis makes a decent living as a crew chief for a sand-mining company and Samantha picks up extra money selling her needlepoint work at a local flea market. Everything changes when Curtis begins to be tormented by powerful apocalyptic dreams and visions. Enormous, swirling flocks of crows swooping out of the sky, strange viscous rain and bizarre lightning patterns, are just some of the unsettling sights that play out inside his eyes. Is he simply losing his grip on sanity or seeing true signs of an impending day of reckoning? As Curtis begins to act upon his premonitions, the question morphs into the even more disturbing dilemma of whether his family needs protection from an approaching calamity or from Curtis himself. The intensity of the mystery is heightened by the amazing verisimilitude with which filmmaker Jeff Nichols renders Curtis’ disturbing and terrifying visions.

The potentially fantastical story is anchored in real human emotions by brilliant performances from two of our best emerging actors. Michael Shannon isn’t famous yet, but is instantly recognizable to anyone who has seen him in Bug, Revolutionary Road, HBO’s Boardwalk Empire or numerous theater productions in New York and Chicago. Shannon brings great honesty and depth to his performance as Curtis, making us feel for this decent, loving man who must make difficult choices about his family without being able to be sure if he is helping or hurting them. Although she was a complete unknown just months ago, Jessica Chastain has been wonderfully omnipresent in 2011, starring in such diverse movies as Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, The Help, The Debt, Ralph Fiennes’ film of William Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and Al Pacino’s upcoming Wilde Salome. Chastain’s powerful performance allows us to feel both the deep love and slowly suffocating fear that Samantha feels towards her husband.

This is only Nichols’ second film (his first was the effecting Shotgun Stories, which also starred Michael Shannon) but it clearly marks him as a filmmaker to watch. Take Shelter grabs hold of viewers right from the film’s mesmerizing first image and doesn’t let go until a haunting finale that will undoubtedly have audiences talking and arguing long after the end.

However it holds her raven hair & his robin-egg eyes
& misery’s cousin & my left hand,
your twisted smile & yesterday’s dirty dishes &
Wednesday’s forgotten trash day, the
yellow ten-speed’s handle bars & two mosquito bites & photo of me at nineteen…

This poem has no title, nevertheless it keeps the second hand clicking & the dryer turning
& the TV blaring, the radio playing, my empty stomach churning & my drunken neighbor yelling,
while the car is moving toward the impossible…

This poem has no title, still it surrounds us in Allen’s voice
& Whitman’s beard, morning mist & white-tailed deer,
three bay scallops & one dying star, my four cats & seven purple balloons,
the last day of summer & my bruised wrist
& their ending affair, pain’s sister…

This poem has no title, still it corrals my thoughts
& unleashes the wind & naps at 2:00 am & is on the road
with Kerouac, works out with Jack LaLanne & sings “Look
What They’ve Done To My Song Ma” off key & plays spider
solitaire when no one is watching…

Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan was the first woman to be appointed Suffolk County Poet Laureate (2009-2011). She is the founder and president of The North Sea Poetry Scene, Inc., publisher of The North Sea Poetry Scene Press and the editor of Long Island Sounds Anthology. She has been honored with a Long Island Writers Group Community Service Award and the MÖBIOUS Editor-In-Chief’s Choice Award. Visit her on Facebook or at her website tammynuzzomorgan.com.

Pam Brown’s sculpture can be delicate. Thin sinews of metal entwine and become biomorphic. They reach to embrace displaced body parts or provide places for eyes to live, hair to sprout and long dresses to adorn the graceful or the awkward. Brown’s sculpture connects industrial aesthetics with human fragility. It contrasts industry and domesticity. Inner lives and outer ones combine through implication. And that’s just the surface.

“My sculpture speaks to the duality of human experience by presenting the world as a complex of objects and ideas that never quite converge,” Brown said.

These concerns radiate through her small-scale sculpture where as public works are more aggressive. There’s a playfulness that may or may not be tongue-in-cheek,  as seen in works installed at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Staten Island, the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn and other places.

“The large-scale works display my interest in industrial aesthetics and its uneasy relation with the fragility of human existence,” she explains. For both, Brown uses sewing techniques to co-join opposites. Instead of pushing thread through fabric, Brown weaves wire through sheet metal. The stitching also combines traditional women’s work and industrial mechanical methods.

“Through the process of suturing or stitching, I attach different elements, without actually negating the identity of the individual material,” she said. “Such juxtaposition suggests the symbiotic coexistence of the conscious and the unconscious, surface and depth, reality and the unknown.”

For Dowling College, Brown weaves guest curators and professor recommendations to create exhibits at the Anthony Giordano Gallery. Shows present challenging contemporary art in a learning environment where students can tap into what’s happening now in the art world. Brown is the gallery director and assistant adjunct professor of sculpture at Dowling.

“Our gallery calendar is faculty-driven…and feeds directly into the course offerings,” Brown explained. “As a consequence, our gallery is transformed into a working studio space which is an extension of the classroom.”

Collaboration was essential in creating Dowling’s first outdoor sculpture show. Brown teamed up with East Hampton’s Guild Hall museum director and chief curator Christina Mossaides Strassfield to curate Dowling College: Sites for Sculpture. The show features six female sculptors who are united by their divergent approaches to material, ideas and working methods, according to Dowling. (An Artist Presentation takes place on October 15 from 1 to 4pm. The installation continues through July 2012.)

Collaborating is Brown’s favorite part of operating the gallery, “In addition to meeting the artists and selecting the work, I enjoy the collaborative curatorial efforts that we make in scheduling shows,” she said. “It really is about bringing and highlighting exciting and challenging artwork to and for our students, the Dowling community and the community at large.”

Artwork presented is innovative and experimental, Brown said. This is possible because the gallery is an educational one and not commercially-driven.  “For me, it’s about bringing art to the forefront, it’s about challenging our students to see differently, to think outside the box, to be inventive and resourceful so they can facilitate the professions of teaching art, making art and promoting the arts,” she said.

The gallery is currently exhibiting Gray Rainbow: Susan Jennings with sound by Slink Moss through October 23. The installation features video art, original music with lyrics, sculpture, collage, sound, movement, shadow and spoken word.

The Anthony Giordano Gallery is based at Dowling College, call (631) 244-3016 or visit dowling.edu.

Regular visitors to the Heckscher Museum of Art are in for a surprise—there’s never been quite a show there like this one. There’s a waterfall made from newspaper shreds, a virtual walk through the woods, bamboo that seems to pass through a wall and broken bits of technology and tree roots that make up art inspired by nature.

Welcome to Earth Matters—a group show of contemporary art made by five artists with ties to Long Island. The exhibition is designed to invoke thought and conversation on preservation, consumer impact and inquires whether spending time in nature is part of the Long Island experience.

“It’s very different for the Heckscher,” said museum curator Lisa Chalif. “It’s thought provoking. We wanted to do something that would have significance or meaning to the community. Environmental issues are timely, right now.”

All exhibiting artists use recycled materials, and sometimes natural ones, to make works with unique perspectives on the nature-human connection. The diverse materials and art making was a conscious choice, said Chalif, I wanted a broad perspective on the environment.”

Tamiko Kawata made “Newsday Fall” from five weeks of Newsday newspapers with wood dowels and brackets. Her work, “Sea Urchins,” uses bubble wrap to envelop shredded paper from offices, centers and individuals. Her art raises issues of human consumption and waste through her experimentation with different “humble” materials, she said.

Thea Lanzisero’s “Tend” is an arch made from bamboo, jute rope, steel, the labor of volunteers and a list of their names to create the installation that spans outside and inside (the artwork doesn’t really pass through the museum wall—it’s just meant to look that way). The work bridges the pathways human thoughts can travel when confronted by changes undergone in nature.

Barbara Roux’s “Moon of Fallen Limbs” uses fallen branches of tulip trees found near Lloyd Harbor beneath the shimmers of a shining moon. Exhibited photographs provide insight into cycles of life, dying, growth and changes in nature.

Seung Lee’s installation “Tree of Life III” combines projected video with stationary artwork made from wood scraps, broken TV and VCR parts, shattered dishes and other discarded materials. His art connects time (past, present and future) to the shifting relationship between the personal, society and nature. An implied demise manifests in the subtle combination of material. Lee also has three other mixed media works in the show.

Winn Rea uses reeds and pins to conjure a topographical map in “Reed Topo: Cold Spring Harbor Hollow.” A two-channel video installation projected through a hanging scrim with mirrors to a backdrop of a recorded soundscape is “Topo Walk: Cold Spring Harbor Hollow.” The pair of artworks was made to create a multi-faceted and multi-sensory experience of a wooded area of Long Island.

Diverse materials and methods can make it tough to identify art in the environmental genre outside of themed shows. Added to that, the public’s interest in environmental art tends to wax and wane according to prevailing attitudes towards ecology, preservation and the role the earth should play in the human drama.

“I think environmental art is respected but not widely seen as a style,” said Roux. “Environmental artists are so varied in their content and concept and their inspiration. But we need them to bring out awareness of respect for nature.”

Opportunity for discovery and connections between nature and humans flows throughout environmental art that raises issues for viewers to consider their own attitudes, actions and interactions with nature.

“I believe artists can do a lot to educate the public for preserving Earth but we have to produce good works to speak to them,” said Kawata.

Separately, Chalif agreed. She believes Earth Matters demonstrates the range environmental art can take and provide access into the conceptual art on view.

Earth Matters remains on view through October 23. Also on view is Across Time & Place: Treasures from the Permanent Collection through October 23 and New York, New York, a tribute to New York City through October 16. The Heckscher Museum of Art is located at 2 Prime Ave, Huntington. (631) 351-3250, heckscher.org.

Asian Art Traditions Meet American Living

Yoo Geun Taek’s contemporary art may take viewers by surprise. The South Korean artist and research exchange professor is presenting paintings, animation and woodcuts at CW Post. His new works are inspired by the “strange emotions” experienced while living in New Jersey and expressed through Asian art traditions. This is the first time Yoo has lived in America.

Yoo’s art combines the traditions of Korean Ink and Wash movement with Japanese block printing. Korean Ink and Wash tradition strives to capture the soul of the subject in an expressionist manner using black ink. Japanese block prints are marked by flat planes, unusual angles and defined linear outlines.

Yoo layers these traditions with contemporary art sensibilities. Some paintings have a touch of orchestrated surrealism. And humor helps lighten serious reflections on contemporary living.

Yoo Geun Taek’s Solo Exhibition is on view from October 2 to 28 at the Hutchins Gallery. An opening will be held on October 15 from 2 to 4pm. Yoo will discuss his work and the role of art on October 18 at 7pm.

Hutchins Gallery, CW Post Campus, Long Island University, 720 Northern Blvd, Brookville. (516) 299-2891, liu.edu/CWPost/Community-and-Culture.aspx.

Sights and Sounds for Warhol

Pop artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987) coined the phrase, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Warhol’s fame continues at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in 15 Minutes: Homage to Andy Warhol. The exhibition continues through October 29.

The show features pairs of silkscreen prints and sound recordings made in homage to Warhol and his circle. Most of the exhibition contributors all knew Warhol, according to exhibition information. They include Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Nat Finkelstein and others.

Also on view is a can of Campbell’s soup and copy of Interview magazine. Both are autographed. 15 Minutes will travel to the Andy Warhol Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Beijing, China and other venues. It’s produced by Jeff Gordon and Path Soong.

Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, 830 Springs-Fireplace Rd, East Hampton. (631) 324-4929, pkhouse.org.

That sound you hear along 42nd Street isn’t just falling leaves and zipping coats, it’s the autumnal whoosh of Broadway diving into its fall season. After a quiet summer marked only by the long-delayed opening of Spider-Man and revivals of Master Class and a star-studded Follies, October rushes forward with four Broadway openings and several other productions starting previews.

Arguably the most anticipated show this month is Katori Hall’s drama, The Mountaintop, which imagines a conversation between Martin Luther King, Jr. and a hotel maid the night before the reverend was assassinated in Memphis. Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett co-star in this two-hander, which won the 2010 Olivier Award for Best Play after its premiere in a tiny London theater followed by a move to the West End. Kenny Leon, who staged 2010’s marvelous Fences revival, directs The Mountaintop, which opens Oct. 13 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.

Comedy aficionados will be anxious to see Honeymoon Motel, a new one-act play by Woody Allen that is part of Relatively Speaking, a trio of shorts opening Oct. 20 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. John Turturro directs the evening, which also includes Talking Cure by film-meister Ethan Coen and George is Dead by the unstoppable Elaine May.

True theater fans will also want to mark the 100th anniversary of unjustly neglected playwright Terence Rattigan, best known for The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version and Separate Tables. What better way to honor this subtle craftsman than by catching Man and Boy when it opens Oct. 9 at the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre – especially since it stars Frank Langella as ruthlessly amoral businessman Gregor Antonescu?

Promised, as well, for October is another revival of Edward Albee’s masterpiece, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, this one a transfer from Chicago’s estimable Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Tracy Letts, Pulitzer-winning author of August: Osage County, stars as George opposite fellow Steppenwolf veteran Amy Morton’s Martha. A theater has yet to be announced at press time, but the 1962 classic is scheduled to open Oct. 13.

As for the rest of the Broadway autumn, promised are a new Godspell, a Bonnie & Clyde musical, a modernized musical Lysistrata, a Broadway transfer for the off-Broadway hits Other Desert Cities and Venus in Fur, and new plays by David Henry Hwang and Theresa Rebeck. Whoosh, indeed.

The heart of winter in northern Maine is frigid, unforgiving and ostensibly opaque. Robert Bruey, who grew up in this region and left as a young man, nevertheless considered the winter to be a season of magical resonance. Bruey, who often expresses himself in poetic shorthand, conjured up one vivid memory of a frozen night: “The moon shining on the snow made midnight seem as day.” Those brazenly short days, along with the brutal cold, also affected his psyche. “The stillness and quiet of winter cleared my mind and allowed only thought to be heard,” he said. These themes of finding light in the darkness and appreciating how silence is a magnetic space that aids in the crystallization of thought and emotion are clearly echoed in Bruey’s life and music.

Since no one in Bruey’s working-class boyhood home played an instrument, the family filled the aural void with an ongoing soundtrack of Johnny Cash songs. Cash and Elton John were the first musicians to truly open up the introspective teen’s ears. “Johnny Cash was a voice for the working man and…Elton John’s music and lyrics were emotional for me,” said Bruey. He began writing poetry in his teens, but would not venture into the role of musician for another fifteen years.

“I knew I wasn’t cut out to live in northern Maine,” said Bruey, and at 20, he left Maine for New York. “I wasn’t where I was supposed to be,” he continued. Bruey quickly embarked on a successful career in sales but felt “incomplete playing the corporate game.” At 30, needing an expressive outlet for his all too familiar sense of alienation and displacement, Bruey started teaching himself guitar. The slow burn of needing to give voice to his sparking and percolating musical core was constant, and at 43, he played his first live gig—a short set of cover songs. From that moment on, Bruey’s career in music accelerated.

Four years later, Bruey has two CDs of exquisitely-sparse, self-penned catharsis under his belt. Songs from the Path and Silver Burning Sky followed in quick succession. They both contain a minimalist mixture of base elements such as guitar, cello and Bruey’s voice, an instrument steeped in silk and desperation. His raw emotional songs expose the existential angst and self-inflicted wounds he intermittently endured without bludgeoning the listener with banal specifics. “A lot of people go through things,” Bruey said. “They can make the songs their own.”

Bruey, now 46, has received critical acclaim for his CDs and live performances. Although he is deeply gratified by the broadening scale of his commercial footprint, he is predisposed to use his influence to foster social justice and to quietly promote his energy-based spirituality. A powerful example is the hauntingly beautiful piece, “Perdoname Hermano.” In the song, prominently featured in the PBS documentary Not in Our Town: Light in the Darkness, he achingly apologizes to Marcelo Lucero, who was murdered in a bias attack in Patchogue in 2008. Bruey said plaintively, “I cried when I heard about that.”

Despite the heavy material Bruey often confronts in his music, his personal life is in full flight. He is the proud father of three children and a newlywed, having married his beloved Dana this past May. Bruey, a Southold resident for the past two years, is enchanted by the physical similarities to his boyhood home. Of the metaphorical home in which he has also taken up residence, he said, “Music is where I belong.”

Robert Bruey will be playing at Sherwood House in Jamesport October 1 and 15 at 2pm, Bistro 25 in Sayville October 8 and 22 at 8pm, Ruvo Restaurant & Wine Bar in Port Jefferson October 13 at 7pm and Peconic Bay Winery in Cutchogue, October 21 at 6pm. Go to robertbruey.com for CDs and performance schedule.

Buy Robert Bruey’s album Silver Burning Sky from iTunes

In many ways, Butchers Blind is the quintessential local band. Pete Mancini and Paul Cianciaruso have known each other since grade school, and met Brian Reilly in high school. They were drawn together by common interests—Wilco, classic roots rock artists like The Band, and vinyl. “We’re kinda, like, record geeks,” Brian confesses.

The three originally formed a group called The Double Stops in 2007 and later re-formed as Butchers Blind. In 2009, they self-released a three-song CD, One More Time. Bill Herman of Paradiddle Records heard it and wanted more, eventually deciding to put out their new album, Play for the Films, and the band recorded nine songs with Mike Nugent in Huntington. The final result is a clean, organic recording that complements the starkly-honest songwriting.

The band is already back in the studio with plans for a new EP to be released in the beginning of next year. When asked what they wanted to do differently with this new project, Pete said their goal is to “get closer to the purest form.” They are going for a raw, live sound with minimal overdubs. This is interesting to hear from a band whose current album already calls to mind the well-played simplicity of a John Levanthal production.

You could say that “the purest form” is a theme Butchers Blind is striving for in their career, not just with this current release. Pete Mancini’s songwriting is uncomplicated and unpretentious. Play for the Films was inspired by the cross-country travel journals of his father, as well as his own travels. The songs on the album are bookended by short first-person readings that could be journal entries or letters home. They’re read in the same unaffected way the entire album is performed—leaving you with the feeling that you, too, have taken a journey.

Journeying is not an uncommon topic for musicians—for whom touring is often a part of life—but Butchers Blind is a little bit unique here, too. “We’ve tried to be a local band,” Pete explains. They’ve played at a lot of local bars, and grew up hearing music in this way. “But it’s really hard here, because cover bands are the only bands that get a following.” According to Pete, getting attention in a local scene already saturated with people trying to “make it” is even harder when you don’t play the songs everyone in the bar knows.

The band also has a problem with the “pay to play” atmosphere that pervades the local scene. It’s not uncommon for a promoter or club to book bands on the condition that they sell a certain number of tickets to their friends and fans—or pay the difference themselves if they don’t sell the required amount. At the end of the day, this leaves bands shelling out cash to play to people who already know them. All three members of Butchers Blind feel strongly that this is not the right way to run a show—either for the band or for the fans. Instead, “We’re trying to get in with other bands that we know and support each other,” Pete says. They’ve been playing shows with other local bands like Mars Cultivation Society, Grand Cannons and The Last Internationale. Community—in the purest form.

What’s next? The band is anticipating releasing their new EP around the beginning of 2012, and playing shows around the area in the meantime. Catch them on October 15th at Pianos in NYC. For more information on Butchers Blind, visit myspace.com/butchersblindmusic.

Buy Butcher’s Blind’s album Play for the Films from iTunes

September selections for 92.9 and 96.9 WEHM New Release Tuesdays (airing every Tuesday from 9-10pm) are a blend of straightforward and complex songcraft.

Superheavy is an intriguing reggae/Indian orchestra supergroup, organized by Eurythmics founder Dave Stewart. The reggae tune “Miracle Worker” from their eponymous debut album features vocals from members Joss Stone, Mick Jagger and Damian Marley, with orchestration by A.R. Rahman.

The latest album from alt-country veterans The Jayhawks is Mockingbird Time, featuring the tune “She Walks In So Many Ways.” There is plenty of chimey goodness here, with sweet vocal harmonies and enthusiastic guitar lines straight from The Beatles playbook.

Pivotal alt-rock figures Wilco return with the longplayer The Whole Love and the track “I Might.” It is an interesting melding of rootsy and modern with old fashioned-sounding drums and multiple melodies via interestingly textured guitars and keyboards.

Hearing is Believing
the PULSE iTunes store is now open!
Click on our iTunes store to test drive these albums and more. If you like what you hear, you can purchase right there! Film playlists and other music is also available. Ever wonder how PULSE people handle the late nights? Take a listen to our Deadline Playlist and find out! lipulse.com and iTunes—we’re here for your listening pleasure.

Let’s hear it for some of the most eagerly awaited releases of the year.

Fleet Foxes
Helplessness Blues
(Sub Pop)
This follow-up to the band’s 2008 eponymous debut does not suffer from a sophomore slump. The band’s disaffected lyrics and pastoral acoustic-based music remains intact, with the star of the show still being the echo-laden harmony vocals. With only two albums under its belt, Fleet Foxes has quickly become one of the most important American bands on the music scene today.

The Low Anthem
Smart Flesh  
(Nonesuch)
On the band’s second major label release, the group stretches out even further musically, expanding the musical vision it solidified on 2008’s Oh My God, Charlie Darwin. Like Fleet Foxes, the band’s sound is awash in echoey vocal harmonies, and precious and lovely sparse instrumentation. However, on this release, the group pushes the boundaries with orchestral instrumental passages creating music that is as light and airy as a feather blowing in the wind on a summer day. This is beautiful, imaginative, original music that will take one’s breath away. A limited edition version of the release includes exclusive artwork and a bonus disc of outtakes.

My Morning Jacket
Circuital
(ATO)
My Morning Jacket also emerges with a strong album after a three-year hiatus. After Yim Yames’ loving George Harrison tribute, it’s nice to hear him singing his own songs again with the band he has fronted since the late 90s. It’s interesting how this band can draw fans ranging from southern jam lovers to geeky urban rock denizens. The band just seems to get stronger with each new release, yet it remains devoted to doing things in a way that’s never too close to rock stardom excess.

Death Cab for Cutie
Codes and Keys
(Atlantic)
Just like Fleet Foxes, The Low Anthem and My Morning Jacket, Death Cab for Cutie has emerged with a new album after a three-year wait. While the band has been criticized in some circles for coming up with an album that on the surface sounds a bit commercial, it’s not that the group has changed, but that mainstream music fans have finally caught up to it. After toiling for years, Death Cab for Cutie is ready for its commercial close-up, which is justly deserved.

Foo Fighters
Wasting Light
(RCA)
It’s hard to believe that Foo Fighters have been around since 1995 and are now commercially-accepted rock music veterans. After a four-year wait, the band emerges with its hardest rocking effort yet. With album art inspired by a Jimi Hendrix album, perhaps the band seems to be searching for sonic pleasures that are not simply about volume. The band somehow has found a balance here that leans neither too heavily back toward its grunge roots nor too deeply into arena rock commercial mainstream bombast.

Hearing is Believing
the PULSE iTunes store is now open!
Click on our iTunes store to test drive these albums and more. If you like what you hear, you can purchase right there! Film playlists and other music is also available. Ever wonder how PULSE people handle the late nights? Take a listen to our Deadline Playlist and find out! lipulse.com and iTunes—we’re here for your listening pleasure.

Steve Adelson is on the stick. Literally.

As master of the Chapman Stick (an evolutionary leap forward from the standard six string guitar, played by two free hands in a tapping method that yields otherworldly results) and the driving force behind the Long Beach Jazz Festival, Adelson’s fingerprints—musical, logistical and spiritual—are all over this up and coming celebration of America’s original musical art form.

Now in its ninth year, the Long Beach Jazz Festival utilizes several local restaurants, clubs and the warm, intimate auditorium in the Long Beach Public Library to bring an eclectic blend of improvised sounds to the City by the Sea from September 15th to September 18th.

Adelson’s strength in producing the festival lies in his commitment to variety and originality. His choice of instrument is outside the (music) box, and so are his choices when booking talent. He’s careful to bill the best of the best in local jazz side by side with some of the genre’s international superstars. The result is a widely enjoyed global gumbo of rhythm, fusion and swing that makes Long Beach its home for a blistering post-Labor Day, four-day weekend party.

“(Over the years) the audiences have really appreciated the quality of musicians that have performed,” Adelson said. “The entertainment standard is very high. Of course, positive word of mouth accelerates attendance. We’ve had lots of repeat visitors and more and more newbies.”

The good energy that’s shared by musicians and fans alike has also been a main factor in attracting some of the festival’s biggest names, including bass virtuoso Bakithi Kumalo, world-renowned jazz drummer Omar Hakim (drummer for jazz fusion machine Weather Report) and this year’s new addition, jazz guitar giant Charlie Hunter.

“The musicians enjoy the cozy atmosphere and great community response,” remarked Adelson, who calls many of the festival’s players collaborators and friends. “They are spreading the word to fellow players that we have this very cool four day event. As a result, bigger names in the genre have come on board each successive year.”

Kumalo weighed in on the Long Beach Jazz Fest all the way from South Africa, where he’s participating in a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Paul Simon’s groundbreaking world-beat masterpiece, Graceland.

“I’m very excited to play in Long Beach this year,” said Kumalo. “Thanks to Steve, Long Beach Jazz Festival is one of [the year’s] best events. Great location, amazing fans and a great lineup of musicians, I’m so grateful to be part of it.”

Rachel Z of Trio of Oz, featuring Hakim on drums, further emphasizes what Kumalo and so many other players know. Adelson’s passion, knowledge and generosity of spirit give Long Beach Jazz Fest its rising star status among musicians and jazz heads alike.

“I think when a musician promotes a festival it has heart,” said Z. “When we play at Long Beach Jazz Festival it has a feeling of warmth and love for the music that echoes into the crowd and reflects back to the stage.”

Jazz is built on improvisation. From a musical perspective, it’s about having the chops to sit freely in the moment, while keeping your eyes and ears open to what’s coming around the corner. Running an annual (free!) event is no different and Adelson is already peeking down the road to keep the jams alive.

“I didn’t know it would work so well in our first year,” said Adelson. “But we present so many styles of innovative and entertaining music. It’s very gratifying to hear someone say as they leave the auditorium, ‘I didn’t even know this music existed. I love it!’”

“We can grow of course,” Adelson continued. “The main obstacle is financial. We get support from our great local sponsors and The Long Beach Public Library. We could not do it without them. Almost all sets of music are standing room only, so eventually we’ll have to find other venues in town. Long Beach Jazz Fest seems to be growing by itself. Money and space will have to be addressed to get to the next level and beyond. [Until then] we invite the world to join us.”

For full details on all performances, visit LongBeachJazzFest.com.

What is a Chapman Stick?
The Chapman Stick was devised by jazz musician Emmett Chapman in 1969 and first manufactured in 1974. Chapman’s vision was to have the techniques of guitar, piano, bass and drums combined onto a single instrument. The fingers of both hands are utilized on its expansive fingerboard and 8-12 strings to create simultaneous bass and treble lines with drum/piano-like tapping.

Long Beach Jazz Festival Lineup, main stage, Long Beach Public Library Auditorium

Thursday, Sept. 15: 

7pm Gail Storm (solo piano and vocals)
8pm Bakithi Kumalo group (Paul Simon bassist)

Friday, Sept. 16:

7pm Vicki Genfan (solo guitar)
8:15pm Chieli Minucci & Special EFX

Saturday, Sept. 17:

12pm Connie Crothers (solo piano)

1pm George Cables Trio                                                      
2:15pm Charlie Hunter duo

3:30pm Steve Adelson Stick-Tet (with Bryan Carrott, Frank Bellucci, Nydia “Liberty” Mata)

5pm Trio of Oz (with Rachel Z and Omar Hakim)

Sunday, Sept. 18:
12pm Mike Barnett Band with Diane Hoffman 

12:45pm Onaje Allan Gumbs Trio 

2pm Stephane Wrembel Trio with David Langlois

3:15pm Oz Noy Trio

4:30pm Dean Brown Band
followed by Dean/Oz annual jam

Steve Adelson discovered the Chapman Stick in the early 80s and has become one of the premiere Stick players in the world. In addition to recording five albums, Adelson has gigged and taught all over the US and internationally. He also owns The Guitar Workshop Music School in Brooklyn.

Steve Adelson wrote for Twentieth Century Guitar magazine for 12 years, has been published in DownBeat, Jazz Improv and Guitar Player magazines and has issued a method book, instructional videos and concerts DVDs.

Steve Adelson has performed with or opened for Les Paul, Danny Gottlieb, Dean Brown, Tony Levin, Chieli Minucci, Oz Noy, Rachel Z., Steve Howe, Rights Of Strings, Stanley Jordan and plenty more.

at earth’s peaks
all languages are spoken
winds are open to all
and newcomers from everywhere become equally connected to holiness

at earth’s peaks
love is interpreted by dust
the rocks are the poets
and new colors are invented in the ancient light

at earth’s peaks i find you again and again
old mysteries are solved by the unfolding of new ones
and the silence is testament to our rotations

at earth’s peaks
families are made in the smiles of strangers
lovers take flight
and humanity is marked in stillness

Photo: Lynn Spinato
On location at Yellow Mountain, China

Words: Nada
At Al-Dier, “The Monastery”, near Patra, Jordan

The first thing to know about Richard Gachot’s art is that it’s not about the parts. Gachot creates constructions from found objects. It’s easy to believe his artwork is about recycling and giving a new life to discarded objects. For Gachot, it’s the sum of the things that’s important.

“For me, it’s the idea,” Gachot said. “I get an idea and the objects are what I use to express it. I could use paint or a pencil or a camera. I use objects instead.”

Gachot has been working with found objects for over three decades. His work pushes beyond clever reusing of formerly-useful objects into preservation, poetics, environmental abuse and indictments of human foibles, said Franklin Hill Perrell.

Perrell is the executive director of the Roslyn Landmark Society. He is a former Chief Curator for the Nassau County Museum of Art. He’s also involved with two solo exhibitions this month featuring Gachot’s work.

“Richard Gachot is one of the greatest artists in the area of found object art,” said Perrell. “I don’t think there’s anyone better.”

Gachot creates portraits, moveable sculpture and tableaus of mechanical “advancements.” Animals, insects, flowers and real estate developers bent on consuming Long Island are all fodder for Gachot’s artwork.

Complicated and intricate scenes include multiple figures and parts that actually work in the machinery, Gachot said. Using mechanical equipment to develop different series is something Gachot enjoys. Some series have devils in them; other series do not. It depends on the point Gachot is making.

“I get an idea and just have fun with it,” said Gachot. “It’s easy to go off on a tangent but I always bring myself back and follow the idea.”

The constructions combine wit with humor, irony and searing commentary. Pieces of former objects are combined to form textures, implied forms and take on new roles, said Gachot. The art is easy to look at and simple to identify. The devil, as they say, is the details. This is often where the kicker is found.

Perrell put it this way in a preface to September’s exhibitions: “Through humble materials, Gachot has created a universal art that produces an original aesthetic and packs a powerful message about the varieties and context of human experience.”

For Gachot, making art from objects is something he just does. His studio is stuffed with potential parts for constructions. Some are given to Gachot. Other times, he goes to great lengths to obtain an object that’s sparked an idea. Like the time he climbed onto LIRR tracks to obtain a discarded item.

“I have a tremendous enthusiasm for this,” said Gachot.

Gachot lives in Old Westbury. He studied at Yale University with Josef Albers (who also taught at the famed Black Mountain College) and Gachot exhibition credits include the Outsider Art Fair and the Frank J. Miele Gallery, both in New York City, the Country Art Gallery and Lynda Anderson Gallery in Locust Valley, the Art Gallery of SPLIA (Society of Preservation of Long Island Antiquities) in Cold Spring Harbor and Gallery Merz in Sag Harbor.

Gachot on View:
The Art League of Long Island (Dix Hills) is presenting a major survey of Gachot’s work through September 25. The show opens on September 18 from 3 to 5pm. Franklin Hill Perrell will give a talk on Gachot’s art during the opening.

The Roslyn Landmark Society is presenting a mini-exhibition at Bryant Library in Roslyn through September 30. Perrell will give a lecture there on September 24 at 4pm.

Intrigue is always a part of Karen Shaw’s artwork. She enjoys combining theoretical systems she designs with codes that order the world. Her conceptual art incorporates codes that are genetic or universal. These can include acupuncture, overheard snatches of conversations or Summantics, a system Shaw designed to reorder words into their mathematical equivalents. Summantics pulls from computer software programming and gematria, a cabalistic method of interpreting scriptures.

Shaw likes puzzles. Recalibrated words, cultural references and implied meanings that encourage contemplation run through her artwork, which can take the form of installation, mixed media paintings, works on paper and more.

Shaw’s art is embraced in Europe, where she’s better known, she said; she has exhibited internationally since the seventies. Countries include Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Guatemala, Brazil and more. This summer she had a solo show in Paris at the Galerie Lina Davidov.

“In Europe, they like puzzles more than here,” Shaw said by way of explanation. “They’re more comfortable with the unknown.”

For around 30 years, Shaw has helped Long Island viewers unpuzzle contemporary art at the Islip Art Museum. Shaw is the chief curator for the museum and the Senior Curator for The Carriage House, an onsite residency program that offers working space to contemporary artists year round.

“I really enjoy curating,” she said. “It’s creating in its own right.”

The mission of the Islip Art Museum is to present contemporary art to Long Islanders and make it accessible. With contemporary art, the idea driving the art is generally important. The art can use unconventional materials, have unconventional presentations and can challenge viewers to the nuances of its meaning.

To make the art viewer friendly, exhibitions in the museum feature several pieces by each artist presented in themed group shows. Artwork selected is challenging but shouldn’t overwhelm audiences who may not be familiar with conceptual art, Shaw said. Information is provided on the art and artists, free of art jargon, to help decode works whose meanings may not be readily apparent.

“We want to show people that contemporary art is not such an esoteric thing and there’s something they can access…The key is to access the work and not to be afraid of it.”

Shaw’s art is part of the museum’s permanent collection. She’s exhibited in group shows at the museum and at The Carriage House.

The next show at the Islip Art Museum is Secret Message. The show runs from Sept. 14 to Nov. 13 with a reception being held on Sept. 25. A separate exhibition of Shaw’s work coincides with the show. In Sept., Shaw’s also exhibiting at the Yale University scientific labs in New Haven, CT.

The Islip Art Museum is a division of the Town of Islip Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs. It is managed by the Islip Arts Council. It’s located at 50 Irish Lane, East Islip. (631) 224-5402, islipartmuseum.org, carriagehousearts.org.

We constantly sculpt our lives to create the version of ourselves that we want the world to see. I’m not just talking about what we wear when we walk out of our apartments or how we decorate the backyard for the barbeque. Think about what many of us reveal and don’t reveal on our Facebook pages and other social networks. Think about what pics are uploaded and where. Think about your album arrangement and your privacy settings. We’re all little artists and designers. We curate our lives.

I’ve often understood concert programming and the building and running of a music venue to be similar to this curatorial process. The venue is the museum; what happens inside is the art. The people who run the show are the curators. What they choose to reveal—the talent, the layout, the architecture, etc.—creates the aesthetic and ultimately shapes our experience as concertgoers.

For 26 years, Michael Rothbard curated the museum called the Inter-Media Arts Center (IMAC) located just south of Main Street on New York Avenue in glorious Huntington, arguably the cultural hub of Long Island. He brought eclectic world music, jazz and rootsy Americana to the area. That was his thing. And because of it, I witnessed fantastic performances by Béla Fleck and The Flecktones, Aimee Mann, and even a quirky Scottish trio I discovered years ago when I accompanied a group of students to London and then again at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. They’re called The Tiger Lillies, and boy are they a bawdy band of talented bards. It made sense that if they were to play an American show east of New York City, they’d play it at the IMAC. And they did. Glowingly. And it also made sense that area music fans were alarmed when IMAC’s museum doors closed in 2009 because of increasing costs and a shortage in funding. Shortly after, Michael passed away. The heartbeat of live music on Long Island had temporarily stopped.

On February 1st, 2011, the heartbeat returned—literally. Over the past few months, every time I passed the site of The Paramount (being built where the IMAC used to be), I heard (and felt) a faint but haunting pulse emanating from inside the dark walls behind the construction barricade and awning. It was mixed in with evidence of serious labor going on during the day, but at night it really took center stage. Bom-bom. Bom-bom. Bom-bom. It was as if something was alive in there, as if something was being born—or reborn.

On a recent pre-opening walkthrough with the founders, I found the source of the heartbeat—two speakers projecting a muted thumping bass hung on the wall above where the entrance to The Paramount will be. It’s a terrific idea. “It’s all about bringing the building back to life,” they told me, and though the heartbeat has recently been turned off in the later evening hours (it was getting a bit loud for neighbors), I could still feel its vibrations as we made our way into what will surely become the most serious rock venue Long Island has seen in years and perhaps ever in this writer’s lifetime when it officially opens at the end of September.

The curatorial vision is this: create the best concert experience for all types of music fans at every level of interest while keeping it “as raw as it gets.” Exposed brick edifices and original steel beams and infrastructure help this cause. The place was once an old vaudeville theater (one of the first outside of the city) in 1927. The founders literally lifted the roof off of the place and expanded the space exponentially to accommodate their brick and mortar vision while keeping the integrity of all its immense history. And by the looks of it, mission accomplished. Walking into the main general admission area (there are also plenty of spacious nooks and elegant crannies including a private Founder’s Room for interested persons), one experiences a sense of sublime expansiveness. When the ceiling was raised or rather, restored to its original height, the building was said to let out “a huge sigh of relief…the 70s was not a good time for architecture.” The ghosts are excited because they have more space to play. The owners like to credit lead architect Karen Hoffman (Hoffman Grayson) for her work and vision on the project. They add that they want The Paramount to be a place that feels like “a bunch of cool guys took over an abandoned theater, threw a band on stage, and had a party.”

If you combined the industrial grit of NYC’s Bowery Ballroom or Webster Hall with the festival-like appeal of the Jones Beach stage, you’d begin to get close to what’s going on at The Paramount. If all that is promised happens, shows here might be magical. The place feels like a temple erected as homage to the gods of rock and roll. There will be screens and monitors for video projections of the gig. Famous lyrics will adorn the stairways. Local graffiti artists will tag the bathrooms. There will be a 2nd floor lobby with a triangular “steel I-beam” bar in front of giant glass windows overlooking the street that may become one of the most exquisite places to see the sun do its daily exit in Huntington. Artists (booked by Live Nation) will love the world-class sound and hospitality. And by the looks of what’s already on the calendar—Elvis Costello on opening night, the B-52s, the Pixies, Amos Lee and Willie Nelson to name a few—the programming aims to book artists who are big enough to fill the 1,600-person capacity and diverse enough to attract folks from the east and the west and bring “music back to Long Island.”

The Paramount is slated to come alive September 30th, and its opening may begin a new era in entertainment for our island. Through a series of what they call “happy accidents,” the founders have designed a kind of perfect urban playground in suburbia. People will come. That’s for sure. The trick, of course, will be to unite the rich and divergent music scenes on the Island (classic rock and jam band fans, emo and indie rockers, club and electronic music lovers, etc.) in a way that works for everyone and somehow respects the community in which it exists. Their vision bodes well for music lovers. The choices we make define who we are, and these feel like choices that haven’t been made in Huntington and perhaps Long Island for quite some time.

For more info and schedules, visit paramountny.com.

[Update: Since the writing of this article, The Paramount has added Rusted Root to its schedule for a “soft opening” on October 28]

“Benefit Concerts for Mick East And West: Two Nights of Song, Support and Celebration” are being held for the popular local musician Mick Hargreaves in September. Hargreaves, a founding member of Los Blaggards and a member of Caroline Doctorow’s band, was attacked on July 31st after a concert and suffered head injuries. The benefit concerts will raise funds to help pay his medical bills and cover his loss of income. Hargreaves is also a founding member of the New York Roots Music Association and a music educator.

The two shows take place on September 16th at Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett from 7-10pm and at the Greenlawn Moose Lodge on September 18th from 3-8pm. The show on the 16th (Mick East) will feature Caroline Doctorow, Gene Casey and The Lone Sharks, Joe Delia, Inda Eaton, Telly, Alfredo Merat, Tali “Icepack” Jackson, Dalton Portella, Sarah Conway, and Dan Bailey, among others, hosted by local radio personality Cynthia Daniels (Monk Music Radio). The show on the 18th (Mick West) will include performances by Buddy Woodward and Brandi Hart of The Dixie Bee-Liners, The NYRMA All-Stars, The Hangdogs, Butcher’s Blind, plus a reunion of Last Hombres, and a set by Mick’s own band Los Blaggards. Additional guests will be added and the show will be hosted by radio personality Joe Rock.

Ticket prices at the door are $30 and include open bar. Additional funds can be donated directly on Facebook on the “Mick Hargreaves Recovery Fund” event page. Organizing the East Benefit is Laura Perrotti who can be contacted via email for information or to participate at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). For the West Benefit contact Heidy Ryan at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Ordinary People Elevated to Art

Painter Burton Silverman prefers subjects from the “every day” when making portraits. Falling beneath his artist eyes are hikers, bus riders, loungers and café patrons. The award-winning painter is the subject of a solo show at Hofstra University Museum’s Emily Lowe Gallery.

Burton Silverman: The Humanist Spirit is on view from September 1 to December 16. The show includes over 25 oil paintings and studies for some of the paintings. An illustrated catalogue accompanies the show.

Silverman’s paintings balance formal visual elements with realism to portray the essence of his subjects, according to Hofstra. The artist imbibes each subject with dignity, which facilitates a shared humanity between viewer and subject.

An artist reception takes place on September 24. At 2pm, the artist will give a guided tour. The reception begins at 2:30pm. The opening includes an original interpretive dance by Hofstra University students.

The gallery is located at Hofstra University Museum, South Campus, Hempstead. hofstra.edu/museum, (516) 463-5672.

Jackson Pollock, Covered

Richard Prince is an appropriator. He’s known for “rephotographing” other people’s printed photographs, including advertising images, then changing them to create his artwork.

The Guggenheim hailed him as a top American artist innovator in a 2007 exhibition introduction, according to Guild Hall. Gagosian Gallery described his art as having “…a unique signature filled with echoes of other signatures yet that is unquestionably his own.”

Lately, Prince has focused on Jackson Pollock. The debut of his new series, Covering Pollock, is currently on view at Guild Hall Museum through October 17. The exhibition spans the entire museum and includes 27 artworks. The iconic photographs are painted and collaged with torn materials. Material strips are from vintage erotica, New Yorker illustrations, cancelled checks, Playboy cartoons, fashion photography and more.

Covering Pollock is the first time Prince has exhibited on Long Island, according to Guild Hall. A color brochure accompanies the exhibition.

Guild Hall is located at 158 Main Street, East Hampton. guildhall.org, (631) 324-0806.

World-class musician, philanthropic activist, inspired teacher, accidental shaman and comedic leader of the pack, are all phrases that describe Jack Licitra, the founder and heartbeat of Jack’s Waterfall. Whether in the form of a one-man band or in its much larger configurations, Jack’s Waterfall draws on an eclectic mix of gospel, jazz, pop, blues, folk and world music to not only entertain, but to also, as Licitra explained, “break down the wall between the audience and the artist.” Jack’s Waterfall also serves as a conduit for Licitra’s multiple humanistic endeavors, which range from his direct support of Veterans for Peace to providing assistance to orphans in Kenya through his Kids for Kids project.

While in high school, Licitra first became transfixed by the profound emotional release he experienced whenever he wrote a song. During college, he not only honed his chops on guitar and piano, but he also became enamored with such artists as Richie Havens and Van Morrison. In relation to his role models, Licitra said, “Richie Havens moved me with his connection to the audience and…I related to the way Van struggled to stay on the spiritual path.”

At 23, Licitra lost his voice. After conventional medicine failed to treat him successfully, he was cured by a spiritual healer who utilized the energetic modality of Reiki. Over the course of his seven Waterfall albums, Licitra, now 38, has become increasingly overt in expressing his own spiritual beliefs, which are grounded in shamanism and the power of music to heal. He stated, “We are at a point in time in which I feel it is important to be helping those people who may be on the fence spiritually.”

While Licitra’s wonderful new release When We Sing: the 7th Sense is layered with spiritual siren calls, it retains a consistently gritty, funky and soulful sensibility. In sonic and thematic terms, the music transverses such fragrant ground as the Cajun delta and the dusty African plain. When asked if the multitude of cultural influences that pervade the album is an egalitarian statement in itself, Licitra replied, “Yes…all things become equal.”

The concept of fairness also impacts the philosophy of his child-centered teaching practice, which Licitra described as, “deepening the students’ connection to music and linking them with service.” The manifestation of these dual goals is his Kids for Kids project in which Licitra’s students join in live performances to support such charities as the Hope Children’s Fund. This joint venture not only raises money for the orphans of Kenya, but it also fosters global fellowship through letter exchanges between the students and the orphans.

When Licitra was asked how he stays centered while balancing so many roles, including that of devoted family man, he said, “I have learned life is harder if you don’t commit to things.” Licitra’s dedication to his musical craft has catapulted the Long Island native, including headlining gigs at the Boulton Center and opening appearances for the Allman Brothers. Several years ago, he raced out of a friend’s wedding during the cocktail hour to sing the national anthem at an event at the Stony Brook Veteran’s Home for assembled veterans and then Senator Clinton. A short while later, he was seated calmly enjoying the main course at the wedding reception. Perhaps this was an example of multi-tasking being performed at the level of high art or simply a budding shaman at play.

Jack’s Waterfall, along with Miles to Dayton, will play at the Calling All Angels CROP Concert on September 10, from 8pm-12am at Thatch Meadow Farm in St. James. They will also play the Boulton Center in Bay Shore on October 22 at 8pm. Go to artspharmacy.com for CDs, performance schedule and teaching inquiries.

Buy music from Jack’s Waterfall on iTunes

Sexy is generally not the first thought that comes to mind when Americans think of Iran, but that might change after seeing Maryam Keshavarz’s Circumstance. Most of our images of Iran are highly deceptive or difficult for us to understand. Many western commentators paint a picture of a nation of anti-western religious fanatics trying to get their hands on an atom bomb. Conversely, the Iranian films that are released in the USA often cloak their messages in metaphor and allegory in order to slip past Iran’s draconian censors.

Along with simply being a fantastic movie, Circumstance offers a fascinating look at the real lives of young Iranians trying to be free in a country ruled by a repressive theocracy. Keshavarz’s powerful drama about two young lesbians who just want to love each other takes us into a world of private passions, underground youth culture and secret parties fueled by alcohol. It is a life that would be familiar to many young Americans if it wasn’t for the omnipresent threat of arrest by the government’s feared Morality Police.

Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and Shireen (Sarah Kazemy) are best friends, and students in the same all-girls school. Atafeh’s family is wealthy and cosmopolitan. Her father is a successful businessman and her mother is a surgeon. Shireen lives with her uncle because her parents, both university professors, have been executed for “anti-government activities.” Both families have raised their children in a liberal atmosphere that celebrates both Western and Persian culture. Their open attitudes are reflected in the diverse music featured in the film, ranging from Bach sonatas and traditional Persian songs to Le Tigre and the pop song “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

As Atafeh and Shireen grow closer, their friendship deepens, and they become lovers. Heady with the excitement of first love, they think little of the potential danger of discovery. Their situation grows complicated when Mehran, Atafeh’s brother, and a former drug addict, turns to religion in an attempt to find meaning in his life. Driven by a mixture of newfound fanaticism and surreptitious attraction to Shireen, Mehran begins watching the young lovers, setting events in motion that will forever change all of their lives.

Director Maryam Keshavarz grew up in both the United States and Iran. Her film is powered by both an insider’s knowledge and an émigré’s expanded perspective. She avoided censorship by shooting her film clandestinely in Beirut, Lebanon, with an all-Iranian cast.

One of the year’s best movies, Circumstance is an intimate story of two women and their families. Keshavarz subtly evokes the sensual private space that Atafeh and Shireen impulsively create to express their feelings towards each other, which mirrors the cultured world that their parents have tried to preserve. However, Keshavarz also captures the moments where the personal becomes political, where people’s individual choices suddenly puts them in direct conflict with the powers that be. Circumstance is an ambitious work that beautifully reveals the complex social, sexual, and emotional currents that shape all of our lives.

The Sunday Street Acoustic Series, which has been running for several years at Stony Brook University in the intimate confines of the University Café, has been very successful. Charlie Backfish, whose radio show, Sunday Street, can be heard every Sunday morning from 9am to 11:30am on WUSB, 90.1 FM, hosts the acoustic series. On September 18th, at 7pm, a musical legend, Iain Matthews, returns to the Café stage for a rare solo performance.

Matthews was a founding member of Fairport Convention, as seminal an English group in exploring folk-rock as American groups The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield were in the 1960s. He also was, of course, the guiding force behind Matthews’ Southern Comfort, which, like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, scored a hit with Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock,” and became one of the progenitors of country-rock, even though the group was English. Matthews also appeared in such bands as Plainsong and made albums with many collaborators, Elliott Murphy, for one.

Matthews is currently involved in many different projects, including Joy Mining, a jazz album from Iain Matthews & Searing Quartet. And after many years, he has a new version of Matthews Southern Comfort, which includes Terri Binion; the group’s newest studio album is entitled Kind Of New.

Matthews lives in Holland, but while vacationing in the states, he took time out to talk about his new projects and his days with Fairport Convention. He began with discussing why he relaunched Matthews’ Southern Comfort, after leaving the group more than 40 years ago. “I wondered, if I hadn’t left so hastily, if I’d kind of stuck with it and become a taskmaster, who would have left and who would have joined and how would the sound have changed?” Matthews talked about how the idea of reforming the band began six years ago. “I had this sound in my head using basically the same kind of material we would do but using a sound that I’m kind of into now.”

The other major band Matthews was part of was Fairport Convention. He was recruited as a singer for the group, appearing on its self-titled debut, then on their second album What We Did On Our Holidays and also on the beginning stages of Unhalfbricking. He also appeared on the reissue Heyday, originally released in 1987, which includes live BBC recordings. When Matthews joined the band in 1968, the female lead singer was Judy Dyble. “Judy and I were really pawns in the game,” he stated. “A lot of the songs were set in keys that were convenient for instrumentation rather than vocals. It was as if the vocals were an afterthought.” Dyble left and briefly there was no female singer in the group. Ultimately, Sandy Denny joined the group, which hastened Matthew’s departure due to a change in musical direction. “They wanted to electrify English folk, but it wasn’t something I was into. I was already off listening to Tim Hardin, Tim Buckley, Tom Rush, and all the contemporary stuff.”

After leaving Fairport Convention and “deciding to get serious about songwriting,” Matthews started his solo career and formed Matthews Southern Comfort. Matthews said that at that time, “songs really began flowing and really came out.”
Through the years, Matthews has recorded many solo albums and collaborated on various projects. There have been solo hits and a stint working as a record executive for Windham Hill.

While Matthews has a new Matthews Southern Comfort and may occasionally play “Meet on the Ledge,” from his days with Fairport Convention, he’s really excited about all his future projects. “I have no interest in being stuck in the past. I feel I have so much more in me and so much more to explore.”

Although his passing last March didn’t earn the ink and media attention of such other recently departed entertainment notables as Elizabeth Taylor and Peter Falk, Lanford Wilson’s legacy will likely prove just as lasting. Some enjoy the Chekhovian ebb and flow of such populous ensemble dramas as The Hot l Baltimore and Balm in Gilead. Others prefer the vibrant character studies of Burn This and 2002’s fine Book of Days. Of course, one can’t forget the Talley family saga, including the highly acclaimed Fifth of July and the poignant, perfect Talley’s Folly.

To begin its twelfth season off-Broadway, the well-regarded Keen Company is reviving one of Wilson’s most challenging, most wrenching dramas, 1970’s Lemon Sky. Semi-autobiographical, the work tells of a young man who goes to live with his estranged father’s new family in California. Keen artistic director Carl Forsman calls the play “a modern masterpiece” and notes on the company’s website, “I think it’s Lanford’s most personal, most touching, most heartfelt play. Lemon Sky [is] Lanford’s attempt to know his father.”

The piece can be tricky, as it is told in partial flashbacks, with the lead character, now 30, often breaking into comment on the action. In his review of a 1985 revival of the play, Frank Rich called Wilson “our primary heir to Tennessee Williams” and said of Sky, “Such is the force of the writing…that even when the bombshell revelations threaten to capsize Act II, we’re so caught up in the characters that we’re moved anyway.” Assessing the same production, fellow New York Times scribe Mel Gussow noted that the play “demands an intuitive style of performance so that it can flow like memory itself, spasmodically, but with a sense that the truth is inescapable.”

If you can’t make it to Keen Company’s revival of Lemon Sky (or even if you can), check out the stunning 1988 television production, featuring Kevin Bacon and wife-to-be Kyra Sedgwick. Sad yet cathartic, it is a reminder that playwrights like Wilson sometimes had to dig deeply through personal pain to transform the experience into art. As Wilson put it in a 2001 interview, “You live within these characters while you’re writing, and your characters tell you where to go.”

Keen Company’s production of Lemon Sky plays at off-Broadway’s Harold Clurman Theater, September 13—October 22.

August selections for 92.9 & 96.9 WEHM New Release Tuesdays with Harry Wareing (airing every Tuesday from 9-10pm) is a diverse mix of pop, r&b and a blending of both.

Young, accomplished English vocalist Joss Stone is already on her 5th album at 24–LP1, which features the track “Somehow.” It has an interesting mix of rock instrumentation and a gospel/r&b feel, all tied together with Stone’s acrobatic vocals and assertive lyrics.

Accomplished blues guitarist/vocalist Keb Mo is back with The Reflection and the tune “The Whole Enchilada.” He delivers the clever, philosophical lyrics with aplomb, the backing vocals are expert and the groove of the backing band is infectious.

Power pop practitioners Fountains of Wayne are back after a long hiatus with Sky Full of Holes and the song “Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart.” The band is a tight unit here and the song is a perfectly crafted example of pop songwriting.

Hearing is Believing
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The following are superb recent releases from artists who are part of famous musical families just in time for spending the dog days with your own loved ones.

Edie Brickell
Edie Brickell
(Racecarlotta Records)
Edie Brickell’s newest solo album has a decidedly crisp r&b groove in spots and her relaxed style and distinct vocal approach have never sounded better. Add to this her more recent collaboration with Steve Gadd, Pino Palladino and Andy Fairweather-Low as part of the supergroup The Gaddabouts and what you have is Brickell in one of the most fruitful periods in her career. These are two albums that can stand proudly alongside hubby Paul Simon’s recent, equally cool solo album.

Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion
Bright Examples  
(Ninth Street Opus)
Sarah Lee Guthrie may not offer any musical signposts that point back to her famous dad Arlo or grandfather Woody, but along with husband Johnny Irion she is making music that would certainly make them proud. Rather than the epic songs of her dad or the raw social folk of her grandfather, Guthrie and Irion’s newest album balances Guthrie’s beautiful voice and Irion’s edgier rock side. Unlike many who toil in the folk and singer-songwriter world, this duo has made a very accessible album that could easily cross over.

Teddy Thompson
Bella
(Verve/Forecast)
The son of Richard and Linda Thompson, Teddy Thompson continues to make music very much on his own terms. While this new release does not have the same full production of his superb previous release, it does continue to reflect Thompson’s enormous gifts as a songwriter and a vocalist of truly unique style and beauty.

The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger (Sean Lennon & Charlotte Kemp Muhl)
Acoustic Sessions
(Chimera)
For all the kin of famous musicians in this roundup, perhaps none has more to live up to than Sean Lennon. Lennon has made wonderful, extremely underrated pop albums on Capitol and now steps out with his own label. Along with his girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl, he has made two delightful albums that merge exotic rhythms and romantic European stylings that will thrill fans of such acts as St. Etienne, Brazilian Girls, Ivy and others. The duo’s newest is a soft, romantic affair of the heart that quietly stakes out an original new direction for a truly talented couple.

Beady Eye
Different Gear, Still Speeding
(Dangerbird)
Basically Oasis without Noel Gallagher, this new group sees Liam Gallagher leading it through surprisingly lean Brit-pop songs that don’t suffer from the loss of brother Noel, who was Oasis’s primary songwriter. Much of the hard edge and anger of recent Oasis albums has thankfully been replaced by an almost mid-60’s pop sound. While fans of Oasis hope the group is not broken up for good, this new band will do just fine for now.

Hearing is Believing
the PULSE iTunes store is now open!
Click on our iTunes store to test drive these albums and more. If you like what you hear, you can purchase right there! Film playlists and other music is also available. Ever wonder how PULSE people handle the late nights? Take a listen to our Deadline Playlist and find out! lipulse.com and iTunes—we’re here for your listening pleasure.

Contributing writers: Shantelle Bocciolone, Anna Dinger, Chelsea Goldinger, Gina Moffa, Veronica Ritter, Melissa Tacchi, Julianne Wilson

The Summer We Read Gatsby
Danielle Ganek
Plume
The Summer We Read Gatsby is a fictional recounting of the summer of 2008 as told by the main character Cassie. Set in Southampton, LI (complete with references to Rte. 27, Riverhead and the LIE among other familiarities), Cassie and her half sister Peck embark upon emotional, romantic and nostalgic journeys that will change their lives and relationship with each other forever. Having been bequeathed a ramshackle, yet charming beach house by their beloved Aunt Lydia, the girls stir up old romances and fond memories from the summer they read Gatsby, seven years earlier during a summer stay with their aunt at the same beach house. Ganek’s characterizations of the two polar opposite sisters and of the flamboyant, eccentric personalities of the Hamptons crowd are expertly portrayed and often hilarious. Her imagery is sharp and for the length of the read, she makes you feel as though you are a “Hamptonite” yourself, living among them. From the themed parties to the gawkers at the helipad waiting to catch a glimpse of the rich or famous arriving for a weekend, her portrayal of the renowned East End playground is dead on.
Dracula The Un-Dead
Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt
New American Library
It has now been over a century since Dracula was successfully vanquished in Bram Stoker’s original book, Dracula, written in 1897—or so we think. Dacre Stoker, Bram’s great-grandnephew, and screenwriter Ian Holt, who lives on Long Island, bring this classic horror story back to us in the official sequel, Dracula The Un-Dead, to give the tale of Dracula a whole new spin. The sequel starts up 25 years after the original novel left off. Jonathan and Mina Harker, whose marriage is on the rocks, have a son named Quincey who pursues a career in acting. He becomes part of a troubled production of the play Dracula, and soon finds himself being hurled into a world of his parent’s past, forced to deal with the dreadful secrets they’ve hid from him his whole life. As Quincey realizes he is in great danger, he must figure out whether Dracula is in fact still alive and seeking revenge.

Reality Check
Jen Calonita
Poppy
Jen Calonita, Merrick resident and author of fiction series Secrets of My Hollywood Life is back to entertain her young readers with her newest novel, Reality Check. Imagine you and your closest girlfriends have been given the chance to star in your own reality TV show, designed to be all about your close friendship and normal every day lives. For Charlie, Brooke, Hallie and Keiran, four best friends growing up in a small beach town in Long Island, the reality is all too real. While the show promises to open doors and earn big rewards for the girls, the ultimate test is whether or not they can keep the promises they’ve made to one another to stay close and grounded. These four “besties” must hold on to the truth and their memories together if they want to maintain any semblance of what their lives were like before the show. And the producers aren’t making it easy…

The Other Life
Ellen Meister
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
We’ve all been guilty of asking the unanswerable question: “What if?” But if you had the chance to go back in time and actually find out the answer for yourself, to put an end to the exhausting hypothesizing and endless pondering, would you take it? Ellen Meister investigates this intriguing idea in The Other Life, which portrays the complex relationship between life as we know it and life as it could have been. The novel, which stands out among Meister’s earlier, more light-hearted and comical books, follows Long Island native Quinn Braverman as she is given the opportunity to indulge in the carefree life she chose not to take. After discovering all that life could have held, she now faces yet another life-altering decision: Which is the life she prefers?

Dancing Around the World with Mike and Barbara Bivona
Michael Bivona
Trafford
Michael Bivona puts an interesting spin on a travel memoir in Dancing Around The World, which follows him and his wife as they literally dance their way throughout the world. The book not only illustrates their dedication to dancing but also recreates the specific ambience and cultural quirks of each exciting location they visit, from Paris and Argentina to Hawaii and the Caribbean. Bivona combines the expository information necessary to truly appreciate dance as an art form with illuminating descriptions that fully immerse the reader in these various backdrops. Photographs, short biographies of select dancers, and even a few dance lessons all result in a memoir that creates its own sort of delightful sub-genre.

Land That I Love
William Freedman
Rebel ePublishers
Sci-fi fans or anyone looking for an outrageous read will relish Land That I Love, William Freedman’s outlandish novel debut. The satire takes a sharp turn from the writer’s non-fiction stints at various business-related publications and allows him to indulge in his less-professional penchant for science fiction, dark fantasy and horrific humor. Set in the distant future, Land That I Love deals with two rival presidents as they wage a galactic hyper-power war against one another that will eventually change the American role in international and universal politics.

Artisanal Gluten-Free Cupcakes
Kelli and Peter Bronski
The Experiment
Love cupcakes but can’t have or don’t want the gluten? Authors Kelli and Peter Bronski have composed a book, which includes 50 recipes for various cupcakes, all of which are gluten-free. The book includes step-by-step instructions and also has recipes for gluten-free frosting. Many of the recipes are also accompanied by an appetizing photograph, which may help those to see the light at the end of the tunnel when baking. In the back of the book there are baking tips for those who do not just want to eliminate gluten, but ingredients such as sugar, dairy and eggs as well. The authors, both living gluten-free, have put together a helpful, compact book that definitely occupies a niche not well filled up to now.

Cabo & Coral Reef Explorers
Words: Dr. Udo Wahn, Illustrations: Jennifer Belote
caboandcoral.com
Dr. Udo Wahn, a Sayville native, values the importance of teaching children how to save and preserve the ocean and all of its resources. Cabo & Coral Reef Explorers demonstrates such values by allows readers to learn through the eyes of two young adventurers trying to captivate the spirit of “Aloha,” a Hawaiian word with an original meaning of “love, kindness, and sharing.” Illustrator Jennifer Belote’s brightly colored pages were used to capture the young characters on their snorkeling, surfing, and kayaking journeys.

Rooftop Gardens, The Terraces, Conservatories and Balconies of New York
Words: Denise LeFrak Calicchio and Roberta Model Amon, Photography: Norman McGrath
Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.
Author’s Denise LeFrank Calicchio and Robert Model Amon challenged themselves to show readers a different side of New York City. Over 100 bright daytime photographs by Norman McGrath highlight Rooftop Gardens, the terraces, conservatories, and balconies of New York City. Advice on optimizing garden space, outdoor furnishings and appropriate greenery, accompany full-spread photographs of gardens that emulate botanical gardens while displaying the Manhattan skyline in the background. Calicchio and Amon further describe how certain gardens coordinate with certain buildings based on their height and architectural surroundings.

Coffee and Fate
R.J. Erbacher
Infinity Publishing
Coffee and Fate is a novel in which portrays the story of how two very different people meet at a coffee shop and ultimately change the fate of the world. An older man, Bud and a young female college student, Val meet and form an unusual bond and unique friendship over a cup of coffee. Each character has a special ability; Bud can envision future events for certain people and Val holds a mysterious supernatural ability that allows her to save lives. Bud’s vivid vision brings him to the coffee shop where Val is on the day they meet. When they meet, there is an instant connection and the two are brought together because of their rare abilities. Although they are complete opposite in many ways, Bud and Val are able to unite for a much larger purpose.

Dog Boy and Other Harrowing Tales
Erica-Lynn Huberty
i-Universe Book Publishers
A collection of six short horror stories, all of which contain the typical eerie, sometimes creepy, frighteningly realistic elements of gothic literature. The book opens with title story “Dog Boy,” which tells the twisted story of prison guards who train dogs to hunt prisoners for the guards’ own amusement. This story explores the complicated nature of the relationships between both man and beast and prisoner and guard when faced in the confines of prison walls. And there are other standout stories. “Counting Sheep,” takes place on a farm in Bridgehampton. Set in 1940, a 7 year old German girl struggles with the hardships of being German in the United States on the brink of World War II. “Blackbrooke Hall” also takes place on Long Island: In an abandoned Amagansett mansion. A group of young socialites encounter a New Year’s Eve gone awry as they discover that the mansion is filled with an unnerving butler, haunting hallways, and a terrifying corpse.

The Deal is On Strike Three
Words: Peter Fertig and Rudy Saviano, Illustrations: Penny Musso Weber
RSI Publishing Inc.
The Deal is On Strike Three calls upon the same themes from perhaps baseball’s most famous poem “Casey at Bat” (written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer) to teach children a lesson about values. It includes an introduction and foreword by Baseball Hall of Fame legends Bob Feller and Tom Seaver, respectively. The book itself captures the attention of multiple generations, as parents can be pleased by the book’s moral compass and children will be entertained by the book’s baseball theme. The illustrations are casual sketch-like drawings, which help children in following the narrative. The story draws upon a classic theme of a son whose number one role model is his father. The father is a baseball player who plays the game for the sake of fortune and fame, instead of because of his love for the game. Queue the story’s villain: A sinful and mysterious man who offers a deal to the son in order to regain his father’s honor. The son is forced to make a choice between fame and fortune and his father’s happiness.

Promises to Keep
Jane Green
Plume
Jane Green, New York Times bestselling author, sometimes referred to as “queen of chick lit” is back with her newest novel, Promises to Keep. Green knows her target audience well (women who don’t mind a book that’ll make you cry) and even more than that knows how to draw her readers in page by page. Moving the scene from the hectic hustle and bustle of New York City to the comforts of the country in Bedford, life also transforms for sisters, Callie, a photographer and stay at home mom, and Steffi, a chef, who both must deal with the unexpected surprises life throws their way. With valuable life lessons at the end of each chapter, along with a recipe that follows, the reader is left with a deep appreciation of the things that matter most in life like family, friends, triumph and good food.

The Flower of God: A Jewish Family’s 3,000-Year Journey from Spice to Medicine
Herbert Ausubel
Urim Publications
Dr. Herbet Ausubel is not your typical doctor. Sure, he was a learned historian prior to completing his degree at Harvard Medical school, but his passion for medicine was not enough to quell his desire to tell the story of his family and the Jewish people. Since he was a young boy, Ausubel was interested in leaving a legacy behind of his own story, and as he grew older, he sought to leave behind the story of the Jewish people, too. He wished to enlighten people of the hardships his Jewish ancestors faced. His book chronicles his own history through his paternal ancestry across 3,000 years. The book begins with the story of Ausubel’s own son’s bar mitzvah day, but it soon moves on to the author’s childhood in Brooklyn. The story traces the history of Ausubel’s family from its 3,000-year-old history in Israel, to Babylon, Persia, Anatolia, Eastern Europe, and to his modern day life as a doctor in the United States.

eBooks
With the advent of multiple major e-reader devices, e-books are more popular than ever, with about 1 in 4 Americans now reading e-books. In fact, from 2009 to 2010, there was a nearly 190 percent increase in e-book sales. As e-books gain increasing mass appeal, the long-time stigma against self-published e-book authors is quickly fading away and e-books have even made frequent appearances on the past year’s best-seller lists. Long Island author are no strangers to this exciting trend.

The Poet and The Murder by Simon Worrall
In Simon Worrall’s first book, he explores the complicated mind of notable American forger, counterfeiter and convicted murderer Mark Hofmann. As the book’s title suggests, the plot revolves around more than just Hofmann, but also around poet Emily Dickinson. The book begins with the sale of a newly-discovered Emily Dickinson poem at an auction. It is soon realized the poem was actually forged by Hofmann and Dickinson never wrote such a poem. The book explores details of how Hofmann expertly forged documents and the impact of his Mormon upbringing on his future life of crime. The book features a chapter dedicated entirely to the science behind forgery as well as references to commonly-known Hofmann forgeries such as the Salamander Letter and how Hofmann attempted to discredit the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through his forgeries.


Chalk White Innocent by Michael Bryn
After a career as an educator for over ten years, author Michael Bryn explores the secrets behind schoolyard walls in his debut novel Chalk White Innocent. The novel provides a rare glimpse into the complex relationship between a student and a teacher. The novel’s protagonist, Benjamin Hollis, is an average high school teacher who spends his entire life avoiding risks. After his mentor dies early on in the book, Ben is asked to direct the school play where he meets student Amy Cabbot. Ben and Amy’s relationship quickly develops beyond the scope of the drama stage, and it is not long before Ben and Amy’s relationship touches upon the illicit. As the plot thickens, Amy leads Ben to question why he abandoned so many of his dreams in favor of stability, and Ben consequently begins to question his secure—yet unfulfilling—lifestyle. For the first time in his life, Ben chooses to abandon the cautious road in favor of risking it all for love.

When the thoughts come instantaneous, like the speed of light, sharp, like a scream, heavy, like a tractor trailer, there’s only one thing the artist can do: unload. it might happen slowly, with measured brooding, equal parts pleasure and pain. it might be a gold medal. or a losing lottery ticket. it doesn’t matter. the simple expression of the compulsion is the high.  *  he knows his art will not go inviolate. but he doesn’t care. he knows it could be his canon. but he doesn’t care. he might even know it will be great. but he’s sure it doesn’t matter.  *  the hungry voyeur watches from the corner, the gallery or the mall, and judges, sweaty and anxious. raining the artist with his words. pumping his fists in misunderstanding.  *  along comes a writer. a nurse. a roadie. a slice of dry toast. reckoning.  *  art will not save the world. it will not improve quantum physics. it will not remedy injustice. but it does remind us of our humanity. it makes us witness.  * there are a multitude of ways to be an artist. these pages celebrate ten of long island’s brightest modern artists. because they have done all of these things. they have sometimes failed. or so we say. but they advance in their pursuits. and they will continue to invent, bolstering the infinitely expanding spirit of man. they interpret. message. reflect us into ourselves. they translate. and they restore a little of what is lost everyday.  *  they must have shows. somewhere, somehow, at least once per year. they must have history. they must be nominated by curators, art hounds, journalists and other artists. they must live by art, their own, and others’. they must be doing something different. and they are. all of it.

5th Annual Artist VIP List: Scott McIntire

The trick of iconography is to portray the marvelous in the immediate to make it accessible.
Read Full Article
     

5th Annual Artist VIP List: Almond Zigmund

Almond Zigmund wants you to laugh at her artwork—or laugh with them, that is. She mingles a unique collection of patterns and shocking palettes on flat planes that appear multi-dimensional and leave you wondering, “What’s in front? What’s in back… How did I get here?”
Read Full Article
     

5th Annual Artist VIP List: Lillian Dodson

After painting bright, expressionistic works for years, Lillian Dodson suddenly, somewhat accidentally, “fell in love with clay and my life changed when I touched it…but I don’t think I can explain what that was.”
Read Full Article
     

5th Annual Artist VIP List: Roseline Koener

When you think of African tribal art, delicate papers in pinks and blues are probably not the first things you think of. But to look at this artist’s totem-like creations of assemblage is to hear the drums and agree that her “work is about making music through colors.”
Read Full Article
     

5th Annual Artist VIP List: Rachelle Krieger

It takes a pretty bold person to attempt to capture the sky. And a pretty humble artist to catch it. It’s a gentle balance and it is the aim of this painter who uses sumi-e ink and watercolors, drawing, scraping and scratching at the boards that host her exploration of surrealism: “I’m trying to get a little lyrical.”
Read Full Article
     

5th Annual Artist VIP List: Paul Pavia

Typically, when a sculptor works on a piece, s/he will bring it along through conception and design, but send the mold off to a foundry for the final, actual sculpting. This sculptor’s process differs in almost every way—he cuts up pieces of bronze and welds them together and then, usually, adds a patina in brown, black or green.
Read Full Article
     

5th Annual Artist VIP List: Ben Owens

Owens is an artist’s artist—all exploration, no apologies. He uses any means possible to move forward in his pursuits (wood carving, illustration, classical painting), and maintains his personal “country sensibility” by leaning on purposeful idioms and bending the pillars of machismo rather than succumbing to the art world’s latest gimmicks.
Read Full Article
     

5th Annual Artist VIP List: Felicitas Wetter

Manual pursuits can be the most intensive, physical and, therefore, solitary of all. Viscosity Etching is just such a process, requiring as much patience as skill.
Read Full Article
     

5th Annual Artist VIP List: Dalton Portella

There are some paintings you stare and stare at, but no matter how much you see, you can’t figure them out. So you go back and stare some more. Still nothing. And then it hits you—it’s because the painting is looking back at you, and in its reflection of you, it’s as if you’re looking through yourself.
Read Full Article
     

5th Annual Artist VIP List: Vicki Ragan

Despite the thousands of miniature objects she has collected to stage her art, Vicki Ragan is attached to a gauzy, gossamer dress. This “muse” is a constant in her work, appearing in a multitude of settings as a depiction of the “human spirit, the presence of a person without the person.”
Read Full Article
     

* * * * *

to be considered for next year’s list, please mail or email your
attention to li pulse headquarters attn: artist list.

Scott McIntire
Greenport
Enamel on Canvas

The trick of iconography is to portray the marvelous in the immediate to make it accessible.

And so too is the art of Scott McIntire—even his medium of choice has instantaneity (enamel dries very quickly), which he uses for its “thick, vivid and earthy quality.” But McIntire is not proselytizing, not even close, and he’s not trying to sell you something either; his panels are “not a recording [but] a relation” of our immediate environs, both those we see (water tanks, tractors, power lines) and those we don’t…like energy fields. He draws as equally from printmaking, silk screening and potato stamps as from his varied professional experiences with textiles, op-art and photo realism. He “loves the primitive”—sees connection between tribal art and American folk art—as well as the exactitude of hard, straight edges of stripes, which are frequent visitors in his panels.

The work is decidedly masculine, either by concentration of “male things” like tractors or by more phallic suggestion (the top of the Chrysler Building, a conical cluster of flowers), but there is a careful inclusion of the feminine (milkshakes, homey patches of quilts). Maybe it’s a dialogue of the two genders, or maybe he’s asserting a new vernacular in pop art—his trajectory seems fixed on intersecting the cultural, like an Asian kimono-shaped painting comprised of elements of Americana, as well as the ironical, like characteristics of industrial skylines posed in front of glam neon colors.

“Water tanks and power lines are silent necessities…[and] look humanoid,” and although people mostly attribute them to marring our natural landscapes, McIntire sees them as “essential to our conversation.” And so he includes them, “rhythmic silhouettes” dancing among his signature “energy fields,” which he articulates by rendering circular lines, patterns and/or spheres that interact with each other (and vibrate his early op-art work).

Almond Zigmund
East Hampton
Paper Installation Sculpture

Almond Zigmund wants you to laugh at her artwork—or laugh with them, that is. She mingles a unique collection of patterns and shocking palettes on flat planes that appear multi-dimensional and leave you wondering, “What’s in front? What’s in back… How did I get here?” Consider the artist’s works to be a banana peel at the sure footing of time and dimension. She works large, installing her helter-skelter planes in spaces ranging from public to corporate (some take up whole rooms). Always, the fixation is on “eschewing language in search of something that is non-linear.” And for the viewer, this is where the intrigue begins.

Her process is “visceral” and “reactive” though the linear quality is simple, minimalistic even. The textures are flat though they seem to be not only 3D, but moving, feeling lighthearted at first though the aftertaste is straight up menacing. You might say it’s what a fun house would grow up to be, if its sliding floors and narrowing walls got PhDs. It is in effect a visual experience that becomes multi-sensory.

The patterns are human made, though they are Zigmund’s “attempt to organize nature…I’m interested in the absurd.” And the sculptures, whether they stand alone or as part of a larger installation, share the same charismatic sense of self; they are “self-contained…discreet objects.” Colors are “always high contrast…high saturation,” which serves the artist’s interest in “friction and dynamism.” The effect is the engagement of an illusionist who invokes multiple vanishing points that shift before your eyes to create an enigmatic aesthetic.

Works on paper radiate the same Hitchcockian paradox, though the process is different. Here, the artist implements a flocking technique, “like old wallpaper,” in which she works with layers of glue paint to apply miniscule sprinkles of nylon fibers to create the patterns. Nevertheless, the small works nod at the larger architectural installations and hold true to the artist’s intention to render “the implication of sound.”

“Knowing when to stop is the hardest thing.” —LD

Lillian Dodson
Huntington
Clay Nature

After painting bright, expressionistic works for years, Lillian Dodson suddenly, somewhat accidentally, “fell in love with clay and my life changed when I touched it…but I don’t think I can explain what that was.” It was a sea change that might be considered an extension of the artist’s belief that her work is less about there being a typical and more about “a slow evolution.”

The pottery process was an immediate catch for an artist who enjoys to “continue to move…the ideas and the process—it doesn’t stand still.” The clay challenged her to have fun and at first she recreated elements of Renaissance paintings by Miranda and Cezanne for the ability to hold on to her connection to them. But the real appeal was the lack of repetition—that no two pieces could be alike.

Quickly, her unconventional spirit moved towards the abstract and the “freedom to explore shapes.” Works in unglazed clay became less about mimicking actual subjects and more about the unconscious. “I loved the movement of the clay and how it would fold and flop down. And I’d listen to the clay and what it would tell me.”

The organic approach of the artist—and the natural process of pottery—is the beginning, middle and end of her work, which often incorporates organic matter in individual pieces as well as collectively. Overall, the works relate more in character than in aesthetic—none are didactic translations of the artist’s passions. Instead, they are sweet and sturdy objects that quietly control their space and vibrate the artist’s sense of peace as she developed them. The beauty is the unique connection a viewer makes with a piece, and how that changes over time as we come to “see what we need to see.”

Roseline Koener
Westhampton
Colors Texture Rhythm

When you think of African tribal art, delicate papers in pinks and blues are probably not the first things you think of. But to look at this artist’s totem-like creations of assemblage is to hear the drums and agree that her “work is about making music through colors.” And the colors are meant to be celebratory, representative of the artist’s inner person.

The colors have a vibration, an actual healing to them; they are her salvo, brilliant and patchworked in layers. Roseline’s eye takes in vistas in horizontal layers, but her hand creates reflections of infinity in vertical layers as she builds “illuminous depths.” As the colors come to her, she introduces tempura with pigment, cotton, handmade paper and fabric, all organic elements that synchronize with her approach. She embraces the playfulness of the process, ready to “build or adapt” as it comes.

A “canvas” is made by starting with a larger cloth or paper, not just to support the foreground, but as a critical layer that may later reveal a special color or help circulate colors throughout the piece. “I work organically, not from the head, but from another place…when a color comes to enlighten or awaken the rest, it’s like magic…I’m almost painting to receive it, but I cannot plan it…it gives dimension to the rest, holds together the nuances.”

The paintings, free flowing like music absorbing Koener’s rhythms, bring people “joy…always something new to discover” and perhaps “access something spiritual in them[selves] by looking at the painting,” as if the art is an antidote for anxiety and spiritual blockages. Spheres make regular appearances (femininity?) and will take center stage in oranges hues to create a layer almost floating ahead of the others, but beyond that, the work is wholly abstract.

Similar to her work, there are many layers to the significance of Roseline. The work is front and center, but complementary to that is her contribution to art and humanity. She embodies harmony of culture, race, age and nation. She is an avid promoter of fellow artists. And her homestead oasis, where she hosts workshops for people to “uncover their unique inner creativity and their inner child,” is a crossroads of art and humanity.

Rachelle Krieger
Port Washington
Solid Air

It takes a pretty bold person to attempt to capture the sky. And a pretty humble artist to catch it. It’s a gentle balance and it is the aim of this painter who uses sumi-e ink and watercolors, drawing, scraping and scratching at the boards that host her exploration of surrealism: “I’m trying to get a little lyrical.” Her work has been primarily about nature, grouping series in periods of a couple of years to a handful, but it is the recent shifts in technique and approach that have brought a new direction to her renderings.

Fundamentally, change first manifested in the focus of her subjects. Krieger went from concentrating on structured and organized formal gardens to the “chaos and decay” that time brings about in nature. The shift happened as a matter of serendipity, while the artist was painting at sands point preserve, but it took hold viscerally for a woman whose main life events have coincided with storms. The very essence of nature’s yin-yang is now at her wrist as she couples the formalism of landscape plein air painting with evocative abstraction.

Her springboard is “the power of the storm, and of nature, as a metaphor for our lives.” The panels are her interpretations of breadth and “the expansion of breath” that is physiologically experienced when contemplating the sky, whether it be moody or gentle; though her tendency is towards the stormy. The works are not sad, though, and Rachelle feels “people will relate to the storminess—on a personal level—and also respond to the expansiveness.”

Paul Pavia
East Hampton
Volume Bronze Metaphysics

Typically, when a sculptor works on a piece, s/he will bring it along through conception and design, but send the mold off to a foundry for the final, actual sculpting. This sculptor’s process differs in almost every way—he cuts up pieces of bronze and welds them together and then, usually, adds a patina in brown, black or green. He likes the physicality of the cut-grind-weld process, but also the close connection that allows him to evolve through the accidents. “It’s direct…I don’t lose touch while it’s at the foundry” and it’s the directness of the pieces that is so attractive.

The work is honest, blunt, like punk rock, but as inventive and mysterious as jazz. His approach is less surreal than philosophical in his endeavor to create a “simple, metaphysical space…something mysterious and unique.” From first gaze, the sense of movement is evident. The structures are not squared off and static, but slightly reaching away from their anchorings. They seem to be dark, broody, heavy pieces, but their soft underbellies are evident, which is likely why they are not threatening (and they size in mainly under 2ft to make for manageable contemplation). “It’s not happiness or sadness… it’s transcendent. Maybe an equilibrium,” is how the artist considers them.

“There’s a lot of contradictions,” which is true, as is the sense of balance. Watching the air pass through the works is an exercise in telepathy. In those moments, the viewer can abandon his own thoughts to consider “the sculptures are waiting for something to happen next,” which becomes transferable to how we regard passersby in our lives. And this might be the secret to the art’s universality.

Ironically, the larger slabs are often supported by smaller pieces, sticks even, aiding in the kinetic feeling and creating “a sensitivity—something poetic, which indicates some sensitivity.” Ultimately, the pieces are an interplay of space, light, air and contrasts coming together at the artist’s fingertips as he is “trying to get some kind of atmosphere” and his works are “still but moving” towards “a timelessness.” Individually, the pieces articulate none of this in a specific, representational way. The grace of the work is it believes in you enough to let you figure it out for yourself.

“There is no figure of time.” —BO

Ben Owens
Port Jefferson
Mixed Media

Owens is an artist’s artist—all exploration, no apologies. He uses any means possible to move forward in his pursuits (wood carving, illustration, classical painting), and maintains his personal “country sensibility” by leaning on purposeful idioms and bending the pillars of machismo rather than succumbing to the art world’s latest gimmicks.

“I love old fashioned ‘boy stuff’ [like] hunting and trapping…but it’s for girls, too.” His bootstrap pragmatism and the long military history of his family certainly inform his attitudes, and it comes through in his art, but so does his walk on the urban side, which leads to design work “hand made in Photoshop.” He is playful, honest and optimistic, and so is his art.

Owens’ nostalgia for bygone days is as obvious in farmyard animal portraits classically rendered as if to revere them, as it is in his sampling of art—designs from early agricultural America or his incorporation of elements of steam-punk culture. Though he concedes the old days “weren’t simpler—The Depression? Vietnam? Yikes,” he is careful in his apprehension of contemporary culture’s transience, “nothing is legendary anymore…angst doesn’t make you better.”

The pendulum swings wide in Owens’ pursuits, “humans are complex and ironic…death is primal—we hunt to eat—everyone should know how to hunt, shoot, knit, write a poem…” and this worldview is perhaps the basis of the work his peers find so compelling, and in fact, so significant.

His nearness to death allows him to be almost sentimental about it and leads to his questioning of human actions edging on the “insane” (drunk driving, drug addiction). Morbidity with a twist of the absurd and a healthy dose of psychedelia might sum up the art. Gumption and tenacity, its bedfellow, might apply to this advocate of the lowbrow who “always want(s) something new…doesn’t want to be one thing” is thriving in “the spontaneity of art” and finding “joy in the mistakes” as they come.

Felicitas Wetter
Coram
Etching Collage, Photography

Manual pursuits can be the most intensive, physical and, therefore, solitary of all. Viscosity Etching is just such a process, requiring as much patience as skill. This diminutive German-born artist inadvertently chose it as her life’s pursuit and appropriated new techniques to change it for her own. But that’s just where the paradox begins…

“Printmaking is about multiple, perfect copies” but Wetter defies that by continuing the process beyond its normal parameters. The multiple steps of printmaking* (plate, etch, ink, roll…) lead to a finished print, yes, but this is just the foundation for this artist’s work. Once the print is dry, she’ll either collage elements (such as other prints) and “take great courage to tear” away the edges to expose the naked paper, which makes each work unique. The guiding aphorism that “frescos aren’t perfect but have age and antiquity” inspires the process that ultimately creates an evolutionary quality to her work.

Her interest in mythology is akin to her love of opera—classical stories, fantastic garments, and vibrant and dramatic scene sequences—making for another wellspring of inspiration. To be engaged by one of her works is to hear the music, too. There is an awareness that considerable effort went into creating so fragile and intricate a thing.

Even her mezzotints are the result of thousands of dots pricked into a copper plate to create a fluid, thick imprint. Again, Felicitas views it as a springboard to add collage pieces and other elements that bring completion of a powerful, yet graceful, natural and gritty composition.

“Sometimes, the suggestion can be more powerful than the idea.” –DP

Dalton Portella
Montauk
Oil on Canvas

There are some paintings you stare and stare at, but no matter how much you see, you can’t figure them out. So you go back and stare some more. Still nothing. And then it hits you—it’s because the painting is looking back at you, and in its reflection of you, it’s as if you’re looking through yourself. Dalton Portella’s works are like that, haunting you even weeks after you (try to) put them out of your mind. When painting, as opposed to his photographic works, the artist’s MO is to “say as much as possible with a single mark,” and in this, he’s tremendously successful. He is partial to oils for the ability to “push them around” on the canvas and brings the hot colors of his native Brazil (yellows and reds) into his moody backgrounds because he finds them to be more expressive than neutral tones. In fact, his figures rest on the canvas almost in defiance of the backgrounds.

Technically, the works are sensual and expressive but still hold onto the figurative and symmetrical values often abandoned in modern art. He is trying “to break free” from the palettes and this exploration renders a distinctive feeling of friction that is unsettling at first, but then slowly relaxes into something else, something altogether familiar and tender. The works communicate phantoms of broken people, perhaps, and vulnerability, certainly, despite their large size. The sense of dislocation, fragility and humility in them are anchoring; you can’t help but think about your own delicacy. Maybe it’s because these subtle, delicate strokes are in such juxtaposition to their backgrounds they create a sense of hope, and it’s so palpable, it stays with you. The formula brings this artist’s works to a new entry point for abstraction, which is what makes him so current and so noteworthy.

Vicki Ragan
West Islip
Photography

Despite the thousands of miniature objects she has collected to stage her art, Vicki Ragan is attached to a gauzy, gossamer dress. This “muse” is a constant in her work, appearing in a multitude of settings as a depiction of the “human spirit, the presence of a person without the person.” And whichever of her silver prints the “model” appears in, the sense of lightness and travel, and even femininity, is obvious.

Ragan “works intuitively, not based on a specific intellectual concept” though she remains partial to silver prints for the dress series because of the way the final photos reflect light, heightening the preciousness of the image. Indeed, the prints seem to articulate a softened, spectral lightness, as if the subject (dress) is being resurrected from the background just as you, the receiver, are from your place and time. This might be what she means when she says the “images create connections [for viewers that] have an obvious emotional appeal [even] without knowing the syntax.”

And she plays with this disconnect, leveraging it to the ephemerality of the dress/spirit/muse, by placing it (her?) in settings that are antithetical to the delicacy of the fabric—austere backgrounds convey a sense of the empty or spent past. If people are in the picture, they’re relating to the subject, rather than becoming part of it; Vicki intends for her muse to stand alone.

This quirkiness, which may only hint at the macabre in the dress series, becomes fully realized in her collages and sculptural photos, which she refers to as “thoughts ready to be processed.” She arranges extracts from her endless sea of collected miniatures into dioramas or stages vignettes she photographs (some of the scenes are later framed and become shadowboxes). By repurposing elements (complete or partial), like matchboxes, shells, nautical references or dolls, she abolishes the linear idea of time and instead fashions testimonials that reference time suspension.

On August 9, 1995 Jerry Garcia, guitarist/vocalist and founder of the iconic rock band the Grateful Dead, died of a heart attack in a rehab facility in Northern California. For millions of Deadheads worldwide, this was the end of the Grateful Dead experience. But for millions more, including a handful of incredibly-talented and tuned-in musicians from Long Island, it was merely a new beginning.

From Manhattan to Montauk, Long Island has always been, and continues to be, a hotbed of “Grateful Deadness.” Even while the “world’s greatest jug band” was touring through the area several times a year in the late 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, Grateful Dead tribute projects like the Zen Tricksters, Roses Cantina and The Electrix simultaneously thrived in local venues—giving people their psychedelic fix during the band’s downtime.

They didn’t know it then, but the cats who were honing their craft in Long Island’s network of dive bars and dark clubs were grooming themselves for the next generation of jam band greatness.

Many of the Island’s Dead disciples have reached the Mecca, playing in various offshoots of the Grateful Dead since Garcia’s death with other founding members Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Billy Kreutzmann. Zen Tricksters alumni and Long Island natives Jeff Mattson (Great Neck), Rob Barraco (Westbury), Tom Circosta (Rockville Centre), Klyph Black (East Hampton), Joe Chirco (Bellport) and Dave Diamond (Bethpage) have all found themselves sharing the stage with members of the Grateful Dead on numerous occasions over the last decade.

Not long after Garcia’s death, Mattson—who bears an uncanny resemblance to Garcia in every way—got the call to play with Lesh. The run was short and sweet as Lesh moved on to experiment with other lineups. Unfazed, Mattson kept rolling along, continuing the Tricksters’ trajectory towards national jam band prominence, hooking up with Grateful Dead chanteuse Donna Jean Godchaux and eventually taking his current role with the country’s premier Dead tribute project the Dark Star Orchestra.

“When I first started performing Grateful Dead music in Long Island clubs, I had no idea what a hotbed for Deadheads Long Island and the New York Metropolitan area was,” Mattson said. “All we really thought about was how much we loved the music and how much fun it was to play. Apparently there was enough hardcore interest in the Grateful Dead’s music to sustain a band [The Zen Tricksters] that just celebrated its 31st anniversary.”

Mattson sees the entire Grateful Dead/Long Island connection as part of a much larger socio-cultural whole, with New York at the epicenter.

“New York City was a major center for jazz music and beat poetry and generally more experimental art forms, all of which the Grateful Dead’s music represented to the next generation,” Mattson said. “The musicians from Long Island who have continued to be involved in playing this music all these years are the sons and daughters of the Dead’s generation and continue to bring those artistic values into the 21st century.”

Like Mattson, Dark Star Orchestra’s current keyboardist Rob Barraco “graduated” from the Zen Tricksters to the ground zero of the sound. He was an integral creative force in Phil Lesh’s daring and angular Phil Lesh and Friends projects that pushed the Dead’s musical repertoire as far as it’s ever been pushed.

Barraco had the chance to bring it all back home to Jones Beach with two unforgettable three-set shows with The Dead in the summer of 2003.

“[During the acoustic sets] I was sitting at a Steinway piano, on stage with Phil, Bobby and the drummers,” Barraco recalled one recent afternoon before a Dark Star Orchestra sound check at Westbury Music Fair. “And I looked out to see the crowd three sections high packed to the rafters…”

From there Barraco’s voice and thoughts trailed off, his smile saying what words could not.

While Mattson, Barraco and their fellow Tricksters all have a love affair with one of America’s greatest songbooks in common, and while they all have the chops and the passion to lead them to great musical heights, what they truly share after decades of playing together is musical trust and intuition.

“Before we ever met, we unknowingly, individually dabbled and extracted, and some way or another came out with completely aligned attributes,” Circosta said of this local cross section of Dead musicians. “That’s where the telepathy comes in.”

It’s a mind-meld that “starts from the stage and spreads to the floor,” as the song goes. And in the New York/Long Island area, that frequency runs high. Since the Grateful Dead’s early beginnings, their adventurous sound and approach always had a special “home away from home” relationship with New Yorkers.

“In New York…they want the sword fighter, they want the juggler,” Garcia himself said to renowned Dead scribe Blair Jackson in a 1988 interview. “In New York, they really want you to sock ‘em with rock and roll. I mean they’re tough!”

That experience and belief was not Jerry’s alone, and that’s the beauty of the scene and the sound. The Grateful Dead’s appeal lies in its polarity. The music is by turns wildly complex yet immediately accessible, galactic in scope but readily touched, tasted and felt right here at home. There’s room on the bus for anyone and everyone, at any time.

Dave Diamond gets to all of that on a primal level. As an ambassador of the pulse and muscle of Grateful Dead rhythm, he knows the swing is the thing; he also knows “Shakedown Street” runs two ways.

“When the whole crowd is dancing, that is the best high for me,” Diamond said. “The scene at Wetlands [a NYC jam band ‘church’ in the 90s] was so magical. The whole place was one big grooving organism. There was nothing better.”

For West Hempstead’s Jeff Pearlman, who founded Rose’s Cantina back in the 90s and now plays keys with The Electrix, that vibe remains in full force to this day.

“Long Island Deadheads are not passive listeners, they are passionate co-conspirators with the musicians,” Pearlman said. “Now that I am on the other side of the experience, I feel this energy from the audience, and it inspires me to heights of playing that I didn’t think I was capable of.”

Like Barraco, Pearlman is also acutely aware of the thrill of sharing this bond with his heroes, and he managed to find the words to express it.

“Over the years, so many of us have had the opportunity to play with musicians from the Dead or to play on a bill with them,” Pearlman said. “It’s truly a dream come true. I think the legacy for all musicians who play this material is that we become links in the chain that carry the vibe and the energy associated with the Dead forward for fans, old and new. As a result, we remain well connected to an energy that’s integral to our life’s force.”
With this attitude and approach, the Grateful Dead DNA is sure to continue its long, strange trip through our local cultural consciousness. There’s no end in sight for the players and dancers alike. And that’s the truth of the Grateful Dead experience. It is both timely and timeless; it can reach across the universe and right into the center of your heart, all in the same flurry of notes.

That’s the essence of the trip. And in the land of the Dead, it’s the trip that matters.

“Gone are the days/we stopped to decide,
where we should go – we just ride.”
—“Crazy Fingers”

“I don’t think about the end,” Mattson summarized. “I just think about the journey. My ride ends when I close my eyes that last time and they pry the guitar from my cold, dead hands.”

Buy music from the Grateful Dead on iTunes

Hear Grateful Dead music and do some hippie spins at these upcoming local shows:

Reckoning  • reckoningband.com
Aug 5, Jones Beach Bandshell
Aug 6, Finn Fest, Island Park
Aug 11, Jack Halyards, Oyster Bay
Aug 19, Moon Chaser Boat Cruise, Captree Marina
Aug 20, Jamesport Wineries
Aug 26, Woody’s, Massapequa Park
Aug 27, Jerry Fest, Fireman’s Park, Patchogue
Aug 28, Long Island Sound Fest, Vanderbilt Museum, Centerport

The Electrix • >theelectrix.com
Aug 12, Alive After Five, Patchogue
Aug 20, The Fishery, East Rockaway
Aug 27, Jerry Fest, Fireman’s Park, Patchogue

The Jam Stampede (with Tom Circosta, Klyph Black and Dave Diamond) • jamstampede.com
Aug 9, Brooklyn Bowl (w/ Kenny Kosek of the Jerry Garcia Band)
Aug 21, Grateful Dead Fest, Warwick Winery, Warwick NY

Dark Star Orchestra (with Rob Barraco and Jeff Mattson) DSO is currently touring internationally but they often come back this way. Keep an eye on their website for tour date updates. darkstarorchestra.net

Don’t Miss These!

Bob Weir solo acoustic [Postponed, New Date TBA]
Aug 7, NYCB Theatre at Westbury

Mickey Hart Band (see our interview with Mickey here) mickeyhart.net
Aug 18, Brooklyn Bowl
Aug 20, Blue Point Brewing Co., Patchogue

Slender and stylishly dressed, the artist Jerelyn Hanrahan seems better suited to wield a paintbrush than an electric chainsaw. A few brushes can be found in her Oyster Bay studio, but lately she’s been working more with heavy-duty machinery and collaborating with an auto body shop, a ship builder, a taxidermist and a concrete pourer.

One day last month, she zigzagged on foot through the tiny hamlet, distributing posters rolled up like diplomas, each neatly tied with a blue or silver bow, to stores and historical sites that had been voted a “Pearl of Oyster Bay.” Months earlier, she polled residents door-to-door for their selections. Her art project, “Graduated Pearls,” is an interactive community program that is to culminate this month with the unveiling of her creation, a large-scale pearl necklace covering an area that’s 40 feet long and 20 feet wide. Big enough to also act as a bench and a children’s play area, the artwork will be installed in Oyster Bay’s Theodore Roosevelt Park.

Along with extensive fundraising, grant writing and other administrative matters, the project took two years. “Two years is actually a short run,” Ms. Hanrahan added, for a public art project.

It’s hard enough trying to make a living as a painter or sculptor. This work adds extra layers of expense and uncertainty. Why would any artist want to do this?

And yet, producing such works of public art is the mission of a small subset of artists who circumvent the usual museum and gallery route —though they’re not averse to indoor shows—in favor of winning funds, buyers or commissions for striking pieces that are meant to be displayed outdoors or in airy indoor spaces like lobbies or airports.

Our world would be poorer without them. They’re part of a tradition that reaches back to the sphinxes of Egypt and other ancient eras, and forward through such icons as the Statue of Liberty. Muralists and graffiti artists also make public art—or, in the case of graffitists, sometimes mar it.

Depending on their approaches and where they are in their careers, today’s artists who make public works may be scrambling for their livelihoods—big sculptures are costly to produce and hard to place in revenue-producing venues—or happily secure that the pieces they make on commission are already bought and paid for by a governmental or other large agency and will be seen by millions of people.

“What you want is for the world to see your work,” said Bryan Hunt, a sculptor who lives in Wainscott and has made pieces for the City of Barcelona, the Seoul Olympiad Park in Korea and the Coenties Slip Park, on Pearl Street near Water Street in Lower Manhattan. Though public art is only a fraction of his output, he captured a major reason cited by all the artists interviewed for what they do: It’s exhilarating to have thousands or millions of people see what you created, even if they probably don’t notice your name on a tiny plaque nearby. Even better, these aren’t necessarily the people who usually visit galleries or museums.

Mr. Hunt’s “Coenties Slip” is a sleek 20-foot-tall steel form that New York City’s Art Commission engaged him to create, and that won a 2004 design award. It stands on a circular base surrounded by blue swirls. The “ship,” Mr. Hunt said, is “standing on ripples of water that flow in all directions” on a spot “where Melville waited and watched.” On page one of Moby Dick, he pointed out, Melville wrote about Coenties Point and nearby areas: “What do you see? —Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries.” And so his piece acknowledges the history of its location, feeling to him like it was “meant to be there.”

Though Mr. Hunt makes plenty of smaller works himself using paint, plaster, clay, wood and other materials, when it comes to casting metal, he turns to Polich Tallix, a foundry catering to artists in upstate Rock Tavern. Its four-story-high main room is as large as a football field. That’s where his stainless steel ship was fabricated. Its base, made of glass, was cast in China. Though Ms. Hanrahan found her collaborators on the North Shore, Mr. Hunt’s international network isn’t unusual for those who make commissioned public art.

In addition, an exhibition of Mr. Hunt’s work closed at Guild Hall in East Hampton on July 31, with six of the large pieces moving to New York City’s Park Avenue in September, where they’ll be installed with four more of his “Waterfalls” series through November.

He hopes that his works will “grow on people, and create a memory,” as works like a Balzac statue did for him when he was young.

Ms. Hanrahan wants her work to grow on people, too. She is not starving, but she’s still struggling in some ways. By gaining charitable tax-deductible status for her project, she made it easier for local businesses and individuals to donate services and money. She also received a $1,000 grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts and $5,000 from Oyster Bay Main Street Association. The project is complex and includes three smaller models she made, 18 to 30 inches in diameter, of fiberglass covered in resin with UV protection.

To make the form for her 30-inch model, she borrowed a buoy from the local Oakcliff Sailing Center, around the corner from her East Main Street gallery and studio, and had a boat builder help with pouring in the fiberglass. Jimmy Brown, the retired former owner of nearby Sagamore Auto Body, did a lot of the finishing work with the paint-spraying machine, she said. He’s helped her before with other large works. (From September 2010 until July, she had another giant pearl necklace, along with a giant shirt, hanging in the glass-walled lobby of the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts in Brookville. She likes pearls.)

A mason supply company owned by an Oyster Bay resident is donating concrete to make the pearls for the park, and a construction company is going to install it, using reinforced steel to anchor the piece. “A lot of the work is getting people to give you things for free. You have to get them excited about the project,” said Ms. Hanrahan, whose enthusiasm for her project seems boundless. Besides handing out her poster-diplomas that recent day, she also carried around a 30-pound pearl model from spot to spot. And she was about to make a video for an online site that gathers contributions for worthy projects.

She was first inspired to make public art, she said, by an artist she met while living in Rome in the late 1990s. Her first big project, called “Gesture as Value,” involved ATM machines that disbursed decorated papers instead of cash, and traveled from Bern, Switzerland to Toronto to downtown Manhattan. She had various grants, including one from NCR, which makes ATMs.

Making public art “breaks down the isolation” of being an artist. “It’s a great thing to broaden that perimeter of who will see it,” she said. “It’s exciting to have an impact on people’s daily lives.” After all her work on the pearls, she said, they can only stay in the park until November, when the space undergoes renovation, but she hopes to eventually sell them, perhaps to an owner of public real estate or a private collector. Though getting the pearl project done has been a full-time job, it’s not all she does. “You have to have a lot of balls in the air.” Curating is one source of income, as are teaching and selling her drawings and paintings at her gallery, Atelier.

Donald Lipski, who spends his summers in Amagansett and resided for many years in Sag Harbor, has it easier. He’s gotten so successful that he’s been able to hire a project manager to do the administrative work that Ms. Hanrahan estimates she spends half her time on. He regularly wins commissions. He’s got a work going into the Sacramento airport this summer and is working on pieces for the San Diego Public Library, the Atlanta airport and the San Antonio airport, among other projects. His most easily seen work in New York is a chandelier he made in 2000 that looks like an upside-down olive tree with about 3,000 hand-made Swarovski crystals dangling on it. It hangs at the Lexington Avenue entrance to the Grand Central Market.

“Instead of a self-selecting audience, like people who go to a gallery or a museum, anybody from any walk of life, any educational background, is likely to walk passed my piece. I love that.” He enters competitions for commissions to create pieces for these specific sites. “It’s completely different from the way artists usually work, where you go into your studio and whatever comes to mind, you do.” He’s “come to terms with the idea of competition,” he said. “I’m very curious. I love new problems and new challenges. I’m stimulated by the situation of trying to figure out what will work in a certain place.”

Asked to make a “forbidding” section of the San Antonio River Walk more appealing—it’s under an interstate highway, with trucks thundering by overheard—he came up with the idea of mounting a couple dozen plastic fish, each about seven feet long, that light up at night. “They seem to be swimming in the air. Every night, a crowd of people gathers to watch the fish light up.” Working on such projects also puts him in contact with expert artisans—a taxidermist for the fish, a man who makes fake trees for the Bronx Zoo for the Grand Central project—and he enjoys the breaks from the isolation of his studio, which in Amagansett is a large tent on the lawn, where he keeps in contact via computer and phone with fabricators (steel, fiberglass) in Colorado and Wisconsin, and with his project manager, who keeps track of “shipping, cranes, crews and coordinates with architects and engineers.”

Mr. Lipski also likes the financial aspect of working on commission. “I’ll tell you this, as an artist just working in studios and showing in galleries and museums, nothing is sold until it’s sold. It might end up in the Metropolitan Museum or in storage. But with these, I have a contract, I get paid, and as long as I’m frugal and efficient in my process, I will be okay. From a business sense, it’s very comfortable.”

Most artists on Long Island aren’t so fortunate. Steve Zaluski, who lives in South Copiague and has a studio in a light industrial building in Ronkonkoma that he shares with beverage vendors, printers, an electrician and other tenants, is probably more typical, sculpting every day but doing other things besides. His building is ideal for him, he said, because he uses an electric saber saw. “I make a lot of noise, but no one complains. They’re out in their trucks.” He usually sculpts in the afternoons, and performs as a musician and makes videos at events in the evenings. He’s sold his sculptures all over the world—Hong Kong, Tokyo, England, France, Germany, Israel and more—but sometimes he doesn’t get paid at all.

“You have to work free as an artist your whole life,” he said. “It’s a very difficult way to make a living. Unlike other professions, they expect you to do a lot of it for free.” He’s often asked to donate work, he said, and he shows his pieces in places where he must bear the cost of transportation. His large-scale works are usually made of bronze, stainless steel or aluminum. Some depict human figures while others are abstract, like his piece, “The Ring of Power,” that stands in front of Parkway Plaza, an office building in Westbury.

Although he received many corporate commissions in the 1980s and 90s, that market has dried up, he said. He wouldn’t give up his work, though. “I create art and music every day. I enjoy my life,” he said.

One way Mr. Zaluski gets his work seen—and purchased by individuals with large lawns—is to show pieces at Long Island’s public art shows, including one at Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson. He donated a piece from a previous show to the hospital, a multicolored sculpture called “The Burning Bush,” and his jaunty 8-foot-tall aluminum squiggle, “Silver Jazz,” is in the current show.

The 31st Annual Outdoor Sculpture Show at John T. Mather Memorial Hospital (on view through August 31) includes 45 works by 35 predominantly local artists, including a few hospital staffers. The artists must pay to transport their works to and from the hospital, and to pay for any insurance. About half the sculptures are on lawns and in a courtyard, and the rest are displayed in two lobbies, open to the public and free. All the works are for sale, with prices from $400 to $4,000 and 20 percent of each sale is donated to the hospital.

“It started out small, but it’s been building up over the years,” said Stuart Vincent, the hospital’s director of public relations. Besides being a way for artists to make sales, he said, it “brings cheer to the patients and visitors.” Although a committee reviews the works, nearly all the entries are approved.

A newer show is the Sculpture Garden Exhibition at Brecknock Hall in Greenport. Now in its second year, the exhibition features 12 works by 10 artists, selected from more than 40 sculptures submitted (via images on CD) from around the world. Brecknock Hall is a restored 19th century mansion on the grounds of Peconic Landing, a not-for-profit organization that operates a retirement community there. The exhibition, presented by Peconic Landing and the East End Arts Council, is free and open to the public 10am-4pm Saturdays and Sundays through November 13.

The event is also an economic boon to the area, said Patricia Snyder, executive director of the East End Arts Council. “We counted 1,500 people who came last year specifically to see the show,” she said. “A lot of people came and had a picnic. The grounds are gorgeous, and very suitable for sculpture.” Each artist gets a $100 stipend, help with installation and copies of a handsome catalog to market the sculptures, which range in price from $2,000 to nearly $40,000, said Dominic Antignano, Peconic Landing’s Cultural Coordinator.

“In years gone by, artists would get commissions, but not so much any more,” said Ms. Snyder. Getting any kind of public funding is more difficult, she said, as grant money shrinks away in this dismal economy.

In suburban areas, she added, commissions are even scarcer, though various organizations, like small municipalities and college campuses, try to provide showcases for sculpture. She particularly likes a project funded by the Town of Riverhead, spearheaded by former councilman Ed Densieski. It allowed artist Richard Anderson of Wading River to carve sculptures into the dock posts along downtown Riverhead’s riverfront in 2004.

Such projects, said Ms. Snyder, are the public equivalent of hanging paintings in your home, so you have interesting things to contemplate instead of blank walls. “It’s art right there, and that’s appealing,” she said. “It’s part of the quality of life.”

Click here read about outdoor sculpture at Nassau County Museum of Art

To see outdoor works by artists with internationally-recognized names, your best bet on Long Island is to head to the Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor, where you can ride around the 145-acre estate in your car or walk on the extensive pathways for free, with a $2 parking fee on weekends (though they’d like for you to visit the museum, too, where the adult fee is $10).

The outdoor sculptures are everywhere. “It’s fun to walk around and come upon them,” said Jean Henning, a senior museum educator who often leads school groups through the grounds. Some of the most popular works are on the path from the parking lot to the museum, including a whimsical 2001 bronze by Tom Otterness called “Free Money” that depicts two round cartoonish figures dancing together on a big bag with a dollar sign on it. She remembers her delight when she came upon another sculpture by the Brooklyn-based artist in the 14th Street subway station at Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. She recognized smaller versions of his humorous figures. “You walk down to where the A and E trains are, and there are his tiny people, tucked under a stairway. It’s wonderful. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment of ‘Oh my God, artwork!’”

It’s also a very different experience from deciding to visit a place where you know there’ll be sculptures. “If you’re coming to a museum with the purpose of looking at art, your brain is in that space. If you’re in the subway, it’s a surprise. It takes you away from being in that subway in New York, mentally anyway.”

That doesn’t mean you can’t be surprised at the museum. When you walk behind the museum building, she said, you suddenly look down upon a field with more sculptures. “There’s always this gasp.” One, by Allen Bertoldi, is in a pretty pond. “It’s a big black circle that reflects in the pond and looks different at different times of the day. Birds perch on it. It’s really part of the setting.”

Some of the 39 sculptures belong to the museum and others are on long term loan from major museums, like the Metropolitan Museum Art, that don’t have room to display or store all their sculptures. A red, white and blue painted steel piece by Alexander Calder, called “Sandy’s Butterfly,” is on loan from the Museum of Modern Art. The newest addition, by pop artist Jim Dine, is a one-year loan from the Pace Gallery. Called “The Mountain in the Distance,” it’s a reclining figure of Venus “with contours that look like mountains.”

One of the most famous artists represented is Richard Serra, who lives in Orient. His “Equal Elevations,” a site-specific work that he installed in 1983, consists of three steel rectangles, each 12 feet high and 40 feet long. Despite its size, “it’s tucked away. Hardly anyone knows it’s there.” It’s also almost impossible to move, so it’s on extended loan from the artist. A new map and brochure, scheduled to be available this month at the museum, will help you find it.

The museum educators often ask schoolchildren who visit where they would put a large sculpture. The most frequent answer, by far, is a shopping mall. They’re right, Ms. Henning said, at least for Long Island. “A mall would be the place for the most people to look at it. That’s where people go.”

Click Here to read Inside Out, our article of outdoor sculpture by Long island artists

The Printmaking Process
Viscosity Etching
Felicitas Wetter

Every print in fine arts is handmade. Color etching incorporating the viscosity technique allows the printmaker to create multicolor prints from one metal plate. The plates used for etching are copper or zinc. The plate is covered with an acid-resistant waxy ground, which is then drawn upon with an etching needle to expose the metal. The plate is etched or bitten in acid baths to various levels. Subsequently the plate is cleaned, inked with etching inks of various viscosities and printed on 100% rag paper and run through an etching press. Each print is hand pulled. Artists can make small etches of a particular image or print one of a kind using large rollers for each color. The viscosity technique lends itself for experimentation and as each image undergoes changes (states), the artist’s ideas of creating a unique work are realized. Each state has its own value and is part of the labor intensive process.

Richard Gardner has a good thing going. He has a trio of galleries exhibiting his photography for a few years running. He enjoys his artistic collaborations with Diana Kovacs, a rubber stamp designer, artist and object maker. He donates a portion of art sales from most exhibitions to a charity of his choosing. All things said, Richard Gardner is pretty happy.

August marks the fourth month of continual exhibitions. Gardner’s solo show, Flying Eggplant #5, is currently on view at fotofoto gallery in Huntington through August 21. The series was previously exhibited at Soho Photo Gallery in New York this past spring. From June 18 to July 9, an exhibition of his BeBe Identity series photography and constructed furniture was exhibited at Ripe Art Gallery in Greenlawn. The furniture pieces personify “BeBe.” They were made with Kovacs.

“I love collaborating,” Gardner said. “It’s fun to bring another mind in and see what happens.”

Gazing at both series, haunting faces can be found in each. New works in the BeBe Identity series is pointed, aggressive and doesn’t shy away from blunt sexual body parts. The images are color-filled and mostly feature distinctive-faced dolls in ornate clothing and provocative poses. Ugly meets beauty and doesn’t flinch. Or apologize. Sadness, longing and disenchantment seem to prevail.

Flying Eggplant #5 is of another ilk. Shot in black and white, the compositions have a soft and dreamlike quality. Disjointed components share equal billing. Sexuality gives way to sensuality and intrigue.

Psychological musings feel strong. There is nothing here that feels like beauty discarded—a theme of BeBe Identity images and other series that feature mannequins, Gardner said.

Images in Flying Eggplant #5 were made from a still life “arranged” with happenstance in mind. The series is an experiment with the random. Two common composition threads are “a human icon” and the number “5,” Gardner said. Their still life companions are found objects included without forethought.

Shunning purposeful planning and keeping arranging away are important parts of the photography process, Gardner explained. Afterwards, frames are snapped in quick succession using the same lighting, the same camera, the same lens and the same aperture. Any impulse to orchestrate is squashed in favor of the random in a Zen-like philosophy.

The process was repeated week after week until a series of compelling images emerged. The number “5” represents a voyager, Gardner said. The “human icon” marks the adventure as a human kind, he explained. The eggplant reference brings in an element of the absurd, he said.

An element of fantasy is featured in all his photography series, Gardner said. This stems from a career spent in beauty industries. It also arises from an attraction to fashion photography and its presentation of idealized beauty, he said.

Fashion photography is the real surrealism of this age,” Gardner said. “Fashion is about something else that’s being shown…Fashion photography is fantasy realized.”

“Flying Eggplant #5: Photography by Richard Gardner includes two new furniture constructions by Gardner and Kovacs. It remains on view at fotofoto gallery (Huntington) through August 21. Exhibition profits benefit Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth (LIGALY). Gardner is a past president of the non-profit photography gallery. A group show of gallery member artists is also on view. Richard Gardner’s work can also be viewed at richardgardnerphotography.com.

Readers of British newspapers and such magazines as The New Yorker or Private Eye, and those who have seen the Disney film Hercules are aware of the art of Gerald Scarfe. Although known for political cartoons and caricatures, some of which have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery, Gerald Scarfe is most associated with the images of Pink Floyd’s most ambitious project, The Wall, in the eyes of music fans.

Scarfe conceived the iconic images associated with the double album The Wall, and the original ideas for the film. He also created the look of all the characters and the animations used for live performances by Pink Floyd and Roger Waters.

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of The Wall and to coincide with the current Roger Waters tour, Scarfe has come out with The Making of Pink Floyd: The Wall (Da Capo). The book brings together many previously unseen photos and drawings on the making of the album, film and concerts. The book includes a foreword by Roger Waters, and all of the members of Pink Floyd share their memories on all the various aspects of The Wall project.

Scarfe met Pink Floyd just after Dark Side of the Moon was released and the group approached him to come up with some visuals. He initially did some drawings for the group’s fan club magazine and then started working on animation for videos for the Wish You Were Here album.

Scarfe talked about the beginning stages of working for the band, which started with the group supplying him with all the album art. “I wasn’t quite sure how to approach the music,” began Scarfe. While listening , he started coming up with ideas. “They probably wanted me to do what I’m known for in Britain, which is my satirical approach to life. Roger is quite political and he likes to reflect on the times around us.”

Many people don’t know that before beginning work on The Wall, Pink Floyd actually had the choice of two different album ideas, based on songs that Roger Waters wrote. One was The Wall and the other was The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking. Scarfe talked about the first time Rogers Waters played him his demo of The Wall songs. “He played me the whole thing and it’s quite awkward when someone presents their work and you’re the only one in the room with them,” he recalled. “It was an awkward time. Then, soon after that, we started discussing what could be done and how we should do it, and what the timeline was, all those things. And practicalities took over from artistic intentions.” To this, Scarfe added, “Roger said right from the beginning, ‘It’s going to be three things—an album, a show and a film.’”

Scarfe indicated that Waters intended the album to be a double right from the start. It was from that decision that Scarfe began the real work of designing the album art. “The gatefold was the first thing I had to work on,” he began, because I had to create the characters for the gatefold. So, long before anything else I had to design the mother, the girlfriend, the judge—all the characters in the film had to go on the album cover so they were done first.”

In the early stages of the film ideas, Scarfe was possibly going to direct, but ultimately, Alan Parker directed the film. “Alan Parker dropped the band from the film, and made it into a dramatic film, which I thought turned out to be the right decision.”

In concluding our conversation, the idea that The Wall was the beginning of the end of Pink Floyd was something Scarfe could not agree with. “The Wall wasn’t the beginning of the end. It’s very tough for these groups to stay together,” he remarked.

As for any future collaborations with Waters, Scarfe said, “The Wall had such a strong identity it would be very difficult to repeat doing something like that again.”

Annually since 1997, the New York International Fringe Festival has brought thousands of artists from all over the world to small venues in downtown Manhattan. Not only has the Fest celebrated the breadth and scope of playmaking beyond Broadway, but it transformed summers from a dormant time of waiting for producers to return from the Hamptons to an opportunity to catch more theater in a weekend than some folks see in a lifetime.

Although the Fringe Fest provides a haven for the low-budget, experimental and downright weird, the event has also served as a launch pad for shows that went on to various levels of commercial success, such as Debbie Does Dallas (the musical, that is), the brilliantly conceived Charlie Victor Romeo and, of course, that unlikely but well-deserved Broadway hit, Urinetown.

As ever, this year’s offerings (Aug. 12-28) run the gamut from solo performances, conceived mainly to show off the actors’ facility at playing many characters, to comedies that one can only hope are as bizarre as their descriptions, such as this blurb for Karen Smith Vastola’s Buried Words: “A flying girdle. A knife. A crucifixion. The evening before their mother’s funeral, two sisters pack up her house and unpack the past…”

Still, for sheer fun, nothing beats skimming the index of shows at http://www.fringenyc.org, and finding title after title conceived (usually intentionally) to drop the jaw and punch the funnybone. For example, Fringe 2011 is scheduled to feature such shows as:

All Atheists are Muslim
Anna & the Annadroids: Memoirs of a Robot Girl
Bette Davis ain’t for Sissies
Casanova was a Woman
Cow Play (“an award-winning play about love, loss and cows”)
Em O’Loughlin was a BIG FATTY BOOMBAH!
The Fucking World According to Molly
Flaccid Penis Seeks Vaginal Dryness
Goldilocks and the Three Polar Bears
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Lost My Virginity
I Light Up My Life: The Mark Sam Celebrity Autobiography
I Might Be Edgar Allan Poe
Jeffrey Dahmer Live
Jersey Shoresical: A Frickin’ Rock Opera
Love in a Tub
Mama Juggs
Moshe Feldstein, Icon of Self-Realization
You Only Shoot the Ones You Love
Zombie Wedding

Perhaps these aren’t for everybody, but if you’ve ever fretted that local summer theater has little more to offer than revivals of Annie and The Odd Couple, it may be time to make a friend of the Fringe.

Ambition is in short supply right now in the movies. We do have hugely expensive, technically complex flicks like Transformers: Dark of the Moon, but that film arguably has little on its mind other than blowing up Chicago, using 3-D to highlight the curves of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and, most importantly, grabbing your spare dollars (if you have any, nowadays). There are also countless low-budget indie movies. Unfortunately, most of them can’t (or won’t) look beyond the eternal dilemma of what 20-somethings should do after college and the minutiae of failing relationships. This makes a stylistically and thematically ambitious film like Another Earth especially welcome, particularly coming in the science fiction genre (which, with a few exceptions, has been fairly weak in recent years).

Rhoda (newcomer Brit Marling) is a beautiful young student with a seemingly bright future in astronomy ahead of her. Rhoda is at a party when a new planet is discovered that was previously hidden behind the sun. On her way home, intoxicated by alcohol and fascinated by the new gleaming orb in the night sky, she crashes into another car, immediately killing the wife and child of composer John Burroughs (William Mapother). When she emerges from prison several years later, Rhoda feels lost amidst her formerly comforting family, and haunted with guilt over the death and destruction she has inadvertently rained down on John and his family. She goes to apologize to John, but chickens out, and ends up anonymously befriending the deeply depressed composer. Rhoda also enters an essay contest to win a seat on the first spaceship to the new planet, which is now called Earth 2 and seems to have a powerfully symbiotic relationship with our planet. As Rhoda and John grow closer, she (and everyone else) becomes increasingly fascinated by the possibility that there is another Earth, and not only are we not alone in the galaxy, but there might also be another you out there as well.

The film’s special effects are fairly simple (the entire effects budget probably wouldn’t pay for ten seconds of Transformers’ CGI), but they are both lovely and evocative, conjuring up unsettling images of a sky that is no longer familiar.

Another Earth‘s fantastical conceits are balanced by the forceful yet subtle performances of the two leads, especially Marling, who also co-wrote the screenplay.

As expected in a first film, Another Earth is not perfect. The initial setup is clumsy and some of the concept is cribbed from Gerry Anderson’s underrated 1969 science fiction flick Journey to the Far Side of the Sun aka Doppelgänger, which was the first live-action work from the legendary creator of the Thunderbirds.

Despite these flaws, the film grows steadily more intense, weaving a mesmerizing atmosphere of existential dread. In a manner reminiscent of the best of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, filmmaker Mike Cahill uses the imaginative potential of science fiction to offer a fascinating exploration of fate, the always fragile hope of redemption and our uncertain place in the cosmos.

Much as it’s important to see new plays, encourage modern musicals and avoid the quicksand of nostalgia, sometimes it’s just as valuable to spend time in classic theater heaven. Broadway is currently giving theatergoers just that opportunity with two exceptional revivals of musicals that have proven time and again to send audiences home laughing, humming and wondering, “Why don’t they make `em like that anymore?” (Even, if sometimes, they do.)

At the Stephen Sondheim Theater, Broadway’s go-to girl for everything, Sutton Foster, is raising the rafters once more in a revival of the Cole Porter tuner, Anything Goes. Last seen on the mainstem with Patti LuPone in 1987, the zany musical is just as welcome in its return, thanks to a staging that zips along via the magic of director-choreographer Kathleen Marshall.

I actually had to check the program to make sure this was a Roundabout production, since most of their musicals, though well cast, have tended to look visually dour and moth-eaten. Not this bright, buoyant mounting, which makes us wish we were scampering about the ship along with brassy Reno Sweeney (Foster), lovers Billy and Hope, soft-hearted gangster Moonface Martin and all the other joyful crazies.

Oddly, the show’s lone weak spot is Joel Grey. As Moonface, he plays cutesy instead of funny, and it tends to leave him a beat behind the other performers and getting chuckles when he could be getting guffaws. It’s a puzzling flaw in an otherwise flawless evening.

Two streets over, at the Al Hirschfeld Theater, one of the best-constructed books in the history of musical theater again makes us marvel at the wonders of this unique art form. It doesn’t hurt that 1961’s How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying also features a score by Frank Loesser, who, if not quite at Guys and Dolls level here, again offers song after song perfect for the story at hand.

Girls in the audience may scream for Daniel Radcliffe as Ponty Finch, and he’s charming, game and quite capable, if not remotely a patch on Robert Morse, but it’s the show itself that’s the star (fine turns by fast-talking John Larroquette as boss J.B. and scene-stealing Christopher J. Hanke as office nemesis Bud Frump, notwithstanding). Again credit the direction; Rob Ashford not only keeps the action fast and nimble but adds a zillion clever touches to the choreography. You’re always scanning the whole stage hoping not to miss a movement.

When the Tony Awards arrive June 12th, you can bet Anything Goes and How to Succeed will duke it out for the highest honors. I feel bad for the Tony voters; it’s tough to choose when each musical deserves to be told, “You’re the top.”

For Robert Edwin and Allen Boulos, co-founders and co-curators of FRESH Art Long Island, “Filling The Void” presents more than an opportunity for self-expression. Via experimentation with various creative mediums, the two-day art, music and multimedia showcase at the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall in Riverhead is a chance to explore unfamiliar physical space and relationships, eradicate present-day constraints and surpass expectations set by others and self.

It is a chance for progress.

“This is our first fully-curated conceptual art installation,” said Edwin who, with Boulos, helped launch FRESH, a collective dedicated to the connection and exposure of local artists on Long Island, in 2006. “We’re also working with non-local artists for the first time, which really allows us to stretch out as curators.”

The aforementioned installation, which will serve as the exhibit’s thematic centerpiece, is The Great American Living Room, a visual requiem for the relationship between family and the television, and how the latter’s generation of false comfort enabled media to enter homes and, subsequently, infiltrate minds.

“As we move from the age of the television into the era of the Internet,” explained Edwin, “we wanted to explore how the sensory effects of technology implanted into our homes become extensions of our bodies and our minds.”

The Great American Living Room will be accompanied by thematically-connected pieces from artists’ selected by FRESH—Lisa Kirk, Stephanie Homa, Hollis Brown Thornton, Ben Owens and FreakCast are some of the confirmed names.

Presented in collaboration with Live@ Recording Studios, a full-service audio production facility in Bohemia, Filling The Void will also feature live musical acts like Ancient Tongue, a hip hop and electronic-based five-piece, and North Highlands, an anthemic, cloud-pop outfit from Brooklyn.

“With Live@ handling the music, it allowed us to focus solely on the art,” said Boulos. “In the past, we scrambled to do the sound, the lighting, and then had to worry about the exhibit, as well.”

Live@ Recording Studios is also responsible for selecting the event venue—the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall.

Constructed in 1881 and modeled after Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC, the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall is the former host of the Riverhead Blues & Music Festival, which ceased operations after 2010 due to budget constraints.

Therein lies the genesis for the Filling The Void name.

“When the blues festival was canceled, it just made sense to come to Riverhead and recreate the space with a new vision,” said Boulos. “Cool stuff should still happen there.”

Edwin’s interpretation of the handle, however, incorporates more of FRESH’s modus operandi: “When I moved back to Long Island after college, there was an absence of artists’ groups. With this show, we wanted to continue to build a subculture for artists to cultivate relationships and create with one another. It’s all about the future.”

FRESH Art Long Island and Live@ Recording Studios present Filling The Void at the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall in Riverhead on August 12 and August 13. fillingthevoidfest.com. Long Island Pulse Magazine is proud to be a sponsor.

From Greenport to Oyster Bay, Long Island art gallery owners, restaurateurs and shopkeepers are embracing a popular approach to revitalizing downtown areas—the art walk. The walks are often collaborations between municipalities or chambers of commerce, galleries and local shops and eateries. Galleries stay open later on a given night each month and restaurants and shops reap the benefits of a regular event that draws crowds onto main streets.

From end to end, Long Island’s walks are cropping up more frequently. Greenport has hosted a gallery walk for five years—one of the longest running around—and Patchogue Arts Council’s Walking Arts Tour will be celebrating its fourth birthday this year. There are a handful of up-and-coming art walks riding on the coattails of these successful events. East Hampton just inaugurated a Thursday night art walk for the summer season, according to published reports, and one for the Bay Shore area is in the works, said Beth Giacummo, the curatorial administrator and curator at the Islip Art Museum. An art walk may also be added to the Community Art Festival in Brentwood, said Margarita Espada, a community organizer for Long Island Wins in Port Washington.

Not all art walks have generated positive results, though. And often, weather or departure of even one participant greatly impacts the whole. The monthly art event in Oyster Bay has suffered since Bonnie Boisits, the owner of the Chase Edwards Gallery, left for an opportunity in Sag Harbor this summer. Christine Benjamin, owner of art collective Art (that matters) in Oyster Bay, said that while there are four galleries and a handful of restaurants still involved, she’s considering only participating in the warmer months and dropping out in the slower winter time. “There’s so much there, but not enough people are taking advantage of it,” Benjamin said.

The Greenport Gallery Walk received a financial boost from money donated by the village’s Business Improvement District, a chamber-type organization, said Joyce deCordova, who co-owns the deCordova Studio & Gallery with her husband, Hector. About three years ago, the Greenport BID generated the funds that created brochures and local advertisements and a variety of businesses benefited. One, Greenport Harbor Brewery enjoys bringing art enthusiasts to their craft beer samplings, while the business’s regulars get a taste of the art world the third Saturday of each month.

In Northport, LaMantia Gallery is usually 50 percent busier on the Sundays their ArtWalk is held, according to its owner. Apparently the key is a new tactic Northport ArtWalk’s organizers have taken—event-goers take their maps to each gallery, get it stamped by an artist and then redeem them at a booth for a prize. Because walkers come in with their maps for stamps, LaMantia can tell how much of its Sunday traffic is actually from the event.

Giacummo, an artist herself, hopes one today to coordinate and connect all Long Island art walks. She added that Sayville holds a one-day art walk, and Bellport organizes a weekend-long event each year. “Since it’s a trend on the Island to have art walks, the idea is to link from one council to another,” Giacummo said. “Hopefully, in the long run we can link them all together.”

The death of Osama Bin Laden and the subsequent capture of hundreds of hours of audio and video recordings allow us a peek into the inner workings of the world’s most feared terrorist organization. As The State Department makes transcripts of these recordings available, we at Long Island Pulse will make them available, unredacted, to our readers.

Subject: Two low level Al-Qaeda Operatives
Media: Cell Phone Conversation
Notes: Only one side of the conversation was recorded and transcribed

A cellphone dials. It picks up:

Ahmed? Abdullah. Hey. Look, we’re doing a video and there’s a good chance they’ll play it on Al Jazeera, so we need to borrow your camera… Yeah, the Canon, the good one… No, it’s just, you know, rhetoric, vague threats, his usual diatribe, you know… I said it’s not... Well, I didn’t know the last time. They don’t tell me much, I’m just the AV guy and… I know we got blood all over your new camera bag… Dude, it’s Jihad. Life is hard for all of us. Did you try Spray and Wash?... I would have used a plastic sheet, but where do I get that, Ahmed? We’re in Waziristan. It’s not like I can walk into a home center and get a drop cloth or something. Home centers here have like straw and mud, you know? If you’re gonna be such a dick then… I have an iPhone 3, so, no video… Yeah, he’s got a 4… Yeah, the 32 gig, but he won’t let us use it… He won’t let us use it. He doesn’t want to scuff up the case now that he finally got a Paul Frank… Yeah with a monkey on it… No, he won’t take it off ‘cause he doesn’t want scratches. Look, Ahmed… I have no idea if he gets good reception. I’ll just borrow Sharma’s camera… I know it’s a Nikon but it’ll be… No, it doesn’t do that, but we don’t need it to do that, Ahmed, we just need it to… I know yours is better, that’s why I called you first… Tomorrow… No, I can’t show you the sex tape when it’s done because I’m not making a sex tape, I’m… Ahmed, no, don’t make a sex tape… No, you won’t get famous… Why not? Cause you’re not hot, Ahmed. You’re not Kim Kardashian… Ahmed, you’re not… She’s Armenian, Ahmed, you’re Afghani and… YOU’RE A GUY, AHMED! She’s a hot chick and… It doesn’t matter if you get a bunch of your wives in on the action, Ahmed. They all wear Burqas. It’ll look like, I don’t know, cub scouts wrestling in tents. Who wants to watch that? Look, I just need the damn camera, Ahmed. Can I borrow the damn camera or not?... Yeah, yeah, you can come… Sure. Whatever at this point… No, you can’t do his make-up, you can hold the reflector… I know he has a big nose, but you can’t fix that with… Good for you, you took a class. Look, just… Just… Ahmed, I’m sure you’re good at it, but, he’s like, allergic or something… Ahmed, I can’t get a friggin’ plastic sheet out here, how am I going to get hypoallergenic base and blush? Can you just bring the camera tomorrow? You can hold the reflector. No make-up… Well, we don’t usually do credits but if it’ll make it happen, yeah. Sure… Sure… No… Sure… Yeah, text me and I’ll come down and get you… God is good to you too, Ahmed.

Hangs up.

In the business of the arts, there is a commodity that can’t be bought or sold.  My grandfather, the cubist-impressionist painter and Armenian Genocide survivor, Simon Samsonian, used to call this “vision.”  He said the greats had it (Picasso, Braque, Gorky, etc.), but lesser-known purveyors (certain street artists, recluses and persons whose works were never anthologized) also had it too; we just weren’t aware of their greatness.

I like to think of it as ethic.  There is a set of principles behind the fierce and unrelenting desire to make something unique.  There is an uncompromising tenacity that lurks in the murky shadows of creation.  The Big Bang.  The original artistic response to a blank canvas.  The impulse is not unlike that of a bomb.  It wants to combust in order to make new.

Steve Messina, the captain of the Blow Up Hollywood ship and co-founder (with producer Nik Chinboukas) says the idea for the band was born in a chat room for fans of the progressive/psychedelic band Porcupine Tree around March of 2001. But it seems to me that the concept has been around since the dawn of time.

“It’s a collective,” says Steve, adjusting/playing off of my first initial shot:  collaborative.  “We’ve had 12-15 members over the past few years.” 

We’re at Socrates Sculpture Garden in Long Island City.  The sun is setting over the city and the various nonfigurative and geometrical shapes that adorn the park.  A helicopter (operated by an ambitious hare) has, apparently, crash-landed near us.  The space is a playground for the imagination. 

I’ve known Steve since my days playing the club and coffeehouse circuits of Long Island and New York City in the 90s.  We were peripheral friends.  He wrote good songs and surrounded himself with incredible musicians.  He was a troubadour with great instincts and pop sensibility.  In 1999, Steve decided he was “checkin’ out” and went the DIY way, which ultimately led to Blow Up Hollywood.

“I hate that music now is all singles.  I got no singles.” 

We’re talking about the current state of music and the idea of the concept album, how things are shifting and have shifted.  The band has made five albums so far and plans to release a sixth in 2012.  They are all, in their own peculiar and brilliant way, various kinds of concept albums.  Two are completely instrumental ambient and deeply cinematic excursions.  The other four offer some more traditional song structures that feature Steve’s syrupy baritone and tasteful playing.  Members of the collective include