FundamentallySound Blog

Upon getting off the plane at Narita, I was whisked away by SkyLiner train to karaoke in Shibuya, then off to a strange very Euro bar with an all red interior, all night conversation to the soundtrack of thumping disco, somehow dovetailing into amazing sashimi for breakfast at 4 in the afternoon, next gave a presentation for Pecha Kucha at Super Deluxe, afterwards I drank the best margarita I've ever had, got some sleep, and now a day to be spent looking for Uto Ploier at BEAMS, and gifts for friends. Welcome to Tokyo.

But throughout all of this I realize that this city should be much louder. How is it so quiet? There is intense activity in every direction and at every angle, but there is so little noise. Everyone takes their cell phones outside to make calls, no one seems to feel the need to have obnoxious conversations (at least in public space), the trains are all so well maintained that they are nearly silent, and no one is carrying a boombox. As I walk throughout the city I just have the sense that these are people who have little need for loud public conversation and are completely uninterested in striking up conversations with strangers. I love this aspect of the environment. I hate it when in America strangers just approach you and start speaking as if you actually want to talk to them. This happens to me constantly in San Francisco and is so completely irritating. Here in Tokyo, communication to strangers is made by slight gestures, clipped statements, and very little eye contact. Definitely the way I prefer it.

---Roddy (in Tokyo)---

Posted by at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's this moment, halfway through the seemingly never ending flight to Tokyo, about the time we cross the international date line, where the reality sets in. Yes, Tokyo is finally showing up on the little digital map in the seatback in front of me. I'm going to be there, today (or tomorrow, as it works out to be).

I need Tokyo like the wind needs the leaves, to bastardize a lovely line by Stephen Merritt. That city was my home for two years, and every time I go back, it is as though I am not returning home exactly, but more like I am plugging into a source of energy. I need its paradox, its whimsy, its combination of quiet, wise introspection and gaudy tackiness. I need the never-ending stream of eye candy and the monthly all-too- noticeable earthquake tremors. I need the intense sense of group collaboration and relentlessly provocative surface. That collective surface of the city, the sounds, clothes, seamless social interactions, architecture, smooth public transit, realized through the conduit of the public masks worn by the city's inhabitants, it all adds up to a experience that is like nothing else. At once I have a feeling of distance combined with warmth. I am and will always be the outsider while in this city, but what a great view I have.

---Roddy (somewhere over the Pacific)---

Posted by at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I often talk about how this city is a city of refugees, of people who are trying to escape something, whether it be the "art world" or "small towns" or the "midwest" or [fill in the blank]. And I'm sometimes a bit derogatory about it, as if to say the quality of art, music, and life suffer because of it, how things are so much more clear and exciting in places like New York, where one can just shout without inhibition or concern. Places where you can just say "Fuck It All!" and feel completely liberated.

But in the last couple of years, I am growing to enjoy the sort of fragile artistic ecosystem that exists here, I am starting to like the fact that so many are a bit hesitant and are concerned with things like delicacy and softness. Because, in the end, I guess I too am one of these hesitant and rather quiet types. Or maybe I adjust to my environment quickly.

---Roddy---

Posted by at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, I'm doing Pecha Kucha. In Tokyo. And I can't wait! The format is genius, 20 slides, each of them 20 seconds long. That's it, that's what you have to work with. Period.

I love making music this way too, deciding the length as the first step. Then you at least know what you're working with. Six hours? OK. Now that's a completely different proposition than six minutes.

For my Pecha Kucha presentation, I asked Momus to send me 15 images of design, lifted off the internet. And he did. And they run the gamut from fabric textures, to experimental architecture, to a lot in between. Simply calling all of these objects "design" is kind of a bold statement, but I think it works to sort of rattle the cage a bit.

For each of the images I composed a 20 second piece. I thought I had finished them last week, but they just sounded too clean, too clear, too, ahem... designed. Then my friend David turned me onto the Conet Project on Archive.org and I IMMEDIATELY fell in love with these strange sounds. I began sauteeing them, digitally speaking, and applied them liberally to the 15 new compositions I had made. Thus, as of yesterday, I have finished MicroMusic for 15 Designs and can't wait to show it in Tokyo, rather soon indeed!

---Roddy---

Posted by at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On February 8th a cult, iconic figure left this earth. True to her “lower middle-class” upbringing, her tumultuous employment history, her fizzling media career, her committed body sculpting crusade, her laudable motherhood labor and all that, Miss Anna Nicole Smith passed away (after passing out) on some funky “prescription” drug cocktail.

A “post-modern” Divine for the hetero/super-size-me crowd, the late dancer/model/actress/star tried to (very literally) make the most of her massive humanity in this media craved “culture”. After an “auspicious” start (she replaced Claudia Schiffer in an ad campaign and was –somehow- touted the next Monroe) Miss Smith went on to determinedly (and probably unwillingly and unknowingly) pave the way for the Britneys and the Paris-es, all the while becoming the middle-aged, beer-guzzling man’s wet dream goddess.

She managed to have her own show –as if- but mainly she was just/basically a “character” for comedians and talk shows. Her best performances were certainly her appearances at awards ceremonies and she was always ready and eager for the paparazzi lenses, probably her own berserk version of the De Mille close-up.

Like the great publisher from the bunny house we sadly regret Anna’s journey into the unknown –where she certainly belongs- and we will start crossing the days in our Hello Kitty calendar until Jenny McCarthy is hired (along with Renee Zellweger’s diet coach) to portray her in the Lifetime movie version of her life, an ode to excess.
As a true hommage to the late stellar figure of American pop-culture, I will go on an eating binge at least once a week.

---Jano---

Posted by at 1:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I realized recently, I'm not much interested in soundscapes. I don't really care to hear big recordings of large spaces, or city soundprints or such things. I'm much more into little tiny sounds, like recording the quiet hiss of the radiator, or the gurgle of the coffee pot. Those are the sounds that are fascinating, when amplified and altered and rhythmicized. I'm going to be recording a lot of those in the next few days to use in my Tokyo performances. And also want to use those kinds of sounds for the work Jano and I doing together for our project at Meridian Gallery this spring.

---Roddy---

Posted by at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In my life I've known several, the ones who, you know, know everything but do nothing. It's the same binary as that found between the collector and the creator, the one who archives versus the one who makes that which is to be archived.

I am impressed by the ones who are out there putting energy and ideas into things, whatever they might be.

But I fear the ones who really do know, they also know that it doesn't matter so much in the long run, whether you create or not. But I still hold onto my small-town ideals which clearly say that it's better to do than to not do. Like Andy Warhol said, the most important thing is work.

This is my little pep talk to myself because I'm freaking out about how much I have to do before my trip to Tokyo.

---Roddy---

Posted by at 9:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last time he did it I knew beforehand and convinced my one beloved auntie to attend the official presentation at some obscure record store in Baltimore and happily spend $15 to get "A John Waters Christmas"; (avec autographe). It sits between similarly signed copies of a 2004 Baltimore Film Festival program and a spring 1999 NY Gallery Guide – with none other than a double Warhol portrait on the cover.

I don't recall any teenage fascinations except the requisite fads and
crushes (I was too busy being angry and cleaning the house) but I do remember being extremely curious about a certain Mr. Waters because:
a) he hailed from a town as boring yet interesting-for-all-the-wrong-reasons as my hated/beloved Trujillo.
b) his muse was an overweight actor who performed in drag (I still
have a clipping from a 1988 Life magazine about Divine's death).

Although it took me a while to watch one of his films, (on TV, with commercials, dubbed to Spanish, on a late night weekday, the unfortunately re-recycled "Hairspray") I have been a fan ever since -fanatic to the extent of following him on the streets of SoHo to get his autograph...).

His films will be the subject of a future entry –thanks Rod!– now I beckon you to stop your cheap, downloading selves and go spend $15 or so to get "A Date with John Waters", the cover picture alone is worth your money!

The selection of songs is pure Waters: preposterously obscure, freakishly funny and somehow absolutely coherent. Just like in his movies, the master of disaster manages to merely put together the result of his endless quest for the ultimate laugh inducing stunner. I won't support your stinginess, so miss a movie or force your pet into a diet by handing in 3 Lincolns for this new gem.

---Jano---

Posted by at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The last names of directing team Dayton-Faris alongside Ms. Toni Collette were enough to make me want to go see "Little Miss Sunshine", but around Xmas season I was rather uhhh… busy, and couldn't catch it. Fortunately, the world release schedule of the film allowed me to see it one month and an ocean away from Mr. Schrock but I still managed to fully enjoy it.

I'm a sucker for dysfunctional family movies (the good, the bad and the ugly kind, just bring 'em on!!!) but I've been digging in the deepest corners of my rusty CPU and can't seem to remember any one that so deftly manages to be darkly funny, distressingly moving, sharp and neurotic (it felt like The Royal Tenenbaums but filmed by Isabel Coixet from a script by David Sedaris).

I’ve heard/read complaints of it being a little "too" calculated in terms of characters, story and plot turns but I’d say the whole thing manages to flow just so and the cast is absolute perfection in human-actor/ress form (the ever bland wallflower of Mr. Kinnear has never –and I doubt he will ever- been so well used and abused in film).

Toni Collette has built a strong resume of hapless, unfit mothers, sort of like the dark side of her ditzy, comedic film persona. And although her performance here is somehow more subtle and muted (than in, say, “About a boy”) she still manages to become the glue that keeps the characters, and the story, together. The kids are more than alright and the elders are just as fine: Alan Arkin doing wonders in his little screen time and Steve Carell proving that he’s not just another goof.

What’s great about “Little Miss Sunshine” (what “elevates” it from the realm of habitual “dark” comedies) is the brutal honesty it uses to portray its characters and people’s particularly boring obsession with so-called-success –then, it’s kind of a guilty pleasure imagining the filmmakers having Oscar dreams in the back of their minds…-. So what are you supposed to do if you can’t/don’t/won’t meet the criteria required to triumph in this deranged world of ours? You just buckle up, do your thing and give everybody the finger (à la “Ghost World”), making sure you keep your brethren at the right distance: not so close that they burn you, or so far that they fade away (like my grandma used to say).

---Jano---

Posted by at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally, I have a guest blogger! That's been a dream of mine for ages. And damn, I found somebody who's cute, smart, and signed up for the job despite the non-existent pay, sometimes moody proprietor, and occasionally highly-pretentious subject matter. (I've got that contract under lock and key, mister)!

Mr. Cortijo will be slicing and dicing with posts from Austria.

---Roddy---

Posted by at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As always, STEIM is doing interesting things. While I whittle away my time blogging about obscure Austrian fashion designers, the people at STEIM are pushing sound and music into fresh new areas, and simply making cool things happen. For 2007, their artist direction looks completely exciting, they have three directors this year:
Atau Tanaka
DJ Sniff
Mazen Kerbaj

I can't wait to see what they come up with.

Posted by at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From someone who knows what he is talking about,

"One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law," Putin told the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy.

"It is a world of one master, one sovereign.… It has nothing to do with democracy."

Posted by at 6:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is another side of her work.

I'm taking donations so that I can afford something made by her on my upcoming trip to Tokyo.

Apparently she's sold at United Arrows.

Posted by at 6:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I recently discovered the fashion design of Austrian Ute Ploier. Now I am absolutely in love with her work, the way the triangles reference one another, the way her angles are so well-defined and her models are completely not like any models I've seen before. And on top of that, everything she does is just so sexy. If only I could afford it.

Posted by at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

NEW EVENTS
Tokyo!
San Francisco !

Posted by at 8:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

... if i could only afford to get my hair cut at this Lim branch (via dezeen). Actually, my life would be complete as well.

This is just beautiful. I want to design the soundscape for this space.

Posted by at 7:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Momus has a lovely post on his blog today about artist couples that work together, specifically Alejandra and Aeron. I learned about them from my friend Nathan Fuhr in Berlin, who was interviewed by them for their Love Project. I haven't followed that project in the last year and am not sure if it's turned up on CD yet, but I'm guessing it probably has. They also wrote occasionally for the unfortunately short-lived e/i magazine, for which I wrote as well.

After a period in the past of having vowed to never be in a relationship with an artist, I've changed my mind. The handsome and talented Jano has put an end to all that.

Besides collaborating on life "projects", we're working on several art projects together as well. He's doing the video work for my upcoming shows in Tokyo as well as a show we're putting together for Meridian Gallery here in San Francisco. More details on both of these will be posted soon.

We're either destined to become Gilbert and George, or Statler & Waldorf. I'm fine with both those options.

Posted by at 9:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)