Moe Diddley

Sorry for the no posts, the last thing I want to do in my spare time is sit at the computer. I've been sorting out my art archives, scraping off the rat shit and putting everything in strict chronological order. Pictures to follow. In the meantime, Bo Diddley died. Velvets drummer Moe Tucker recorded his signature tune several times, including this version from her OOP solo debut DIY masterpiece Playin Possum. "I saw him live for the first time in '63 when he was with Jerome and all those guys," recalled Moe in a PSF interview "In person, it was just stunning. One of my things was that I vowed to record "Bo Diddley" every time I went to the studio. Then Kostek reared his ugly head and said 'when you record for a label, part of the contract is that you won't record those songs for X years.' So, I couldn't really record that again for the next one and that really pissed me off. I really wanted to do that one on EVERY record. And if I ever got it right, I'd stop. (laughs)"


Another great interview I found, while sniffing around the web as regards Eduardo Paolozzi is this three-way - on the occasion of his disastrous 1971 Tate retrospective - between Eduardo, J.G. Ballard and Frank Whitford (author of The Ultimate 3-D Pop-up Art Book and a swell LAT rant about Derrida as well as Paolozzi's Guardian obit, the catalog for his disastrous 1971 Tate retrospective, and an extensive if raggedly transcribed online interview.) Ballard, in high CRASH mode, observes "Although our central nervous systems have been handed to us on a plate by millions of years of evolution, have been trained to respond to violence at the level of finger-tip and nerve-ending, in fact now our only experience of violence is in the head, in terms of our imagination, the last place where we were designed to deal with violence. We have absolutely no biological training to deal with violence in imaginative terms. And our whole inherited expertise for dealing with violence, our central nervous systems, our musculature, our senses, our ability to run fast or to react quickly, our reflexes, all that inherited expertise is never used." Ballard goes on to describe his legendary April 1970 exhibit of crashed cars at the New Arts Lab in London. The above photo shows Paolozzi (on the occasion of his disastrous 1971 Tate retrospective) and Ballard immediately above the arm of Euphoria Bliss.


All of which is my roundabout way of suggesting you check out Brian Bress' new video for Wounded Lion's Pony People on youtube, then, if you're in the neighborhood, go to their FREE live performance at the Echo on Monday (July 7). They go on around 10:30 is what I heard.