Happy New Year

Abstract Joe's Temper #1

Now that it's back from that show in Walnut I guess I won't spoil any surprises by posting the widescreen version of Abstract Joe's Temper #1, acrylic & silver enamel on paper, about what? 5 X 14 ft? Something like that. Painted this last summer. Joe's Temper is a comic-strip advertisement for toilet paper from a late 1930s True Confessions magazine, which I've used as source material for a wide range of activities (painting, audio art, performance, curation, publishing, etc.) over the last 3 decades. These round clusters of marks consist of individual lines traced from the JT strip. Check out the original after the jump, and the big JT painting I did in Vegas in the Spring. I've regularly chopped Joe, his Wife, and The Doctor into pieces pretty much from the get-go, but this is the first time I've totally pulverized them!

Christmas Eve Whippet Pageant

Here's for what passes for winter in LA -- the deciduous trees start to denude themselves around the solstice! We took the whippets - L-R Chloe, Nigel & Portfolio - to the Little League field for to chase the ball, which they did. The long gold light was super awesome. Thank you, Jesus!

"Christmas Oh Christmas" by the Keith Walsh Experience

One Man Band The Keith Walsh Experience debuting a new folk-rock Christmas number on Doug Harvey's Less Art Radio Zine, KCHUNG AM 1630, Dec 22 2013

Keith Walsh Experience on DH'sLARZ

Keith Walsh's interview went excellent! The DJ after me didn't show up, so we got to stretch out and fill up 2 hours, though I was actually going to get him to play a couple more live numbers. He nevertheless managed to debut a newly-composed Christmas Song (Christmas Oh Christmas)and a preview of his forthcoming album (Starship SSDD). I'll try and get a playlist together, with some links, after I do the same for Jim Shaw's show! I'm also going to try and edit together a Less Art Radio Zine Cassette Zine for KCHUNG's merch table at the LA Book Fair, so keep an ear peeled. In the meantime, here's the link to the KWE show: Doug Harvey's Less Art Radio Zine with Keith Walsh.

And don't forget to check out the KWE live in a Battle of the One Man Bands (VS Reverend Beat-Man from Bern Switzerland and Becky Lee from Arizona) Saturday December 28, 2013, 9 PM at Café Nela 1906 Cypress Ave. LA 90065 Only $9!

Keith Walsh on Doug Harvey's Less Art Radio Zine

The guest for the Dec 22nd 2013 broadcast of Doug Harvey's Less Art Radio Zine is Keith Walsh, one of the most underrated visual artists in LA, and the sole member of The Keith Walsh Experience. If you're unfamiliar with his visual art, check it out here: www.keithwalsh.net and on his facebook page.

As OMB KWE (One-Man-Band Keith Walsh Experience), Walsh straddles the equally underground cultures of OMBrother/sisterhood (which stretches back at least to the 13th century) and DIY music production, with an enormous self-released catalog ranging from unaltered live-in-studio OMB performances to layered lo-fi chamber shmootz to more "conventional" multitracked recordings made with an antiquated Fostex cassette 4-track.

Walsh's recordings and performances are also remarkable for the strength of his songwriting -- not a hallmark of OMB culture (Hasil Adkins notwithstanding) which often leans heavily on the novelty aspect of virtuosic multitasking by rendering faithful covers of familiar music with a busker-pragmatic patina of zaniness.

You can count the covers in the KWE repertoire on one hand, but not the wide range of stylistic references that surface in his music - from Iggy, Bowie, and Suicide to Johns Cale, Lydon, and Fahey -- with dashes of Beefheart, Sun Ra, and Metallica to keep things spicy. Grounded by Keith's ear for a hook and rock & roll heart, this array of influences are brought to bear on weirdly jaunty instrumentals (Walsh also cites lounge-Führer Bert Kaempfert as a major inspiration) and well-constructed lyrics that are literate, poetic, and catchy.

Keith Walsh is one of those artists that beg the question "If he's so great why aren't I famous?" -- both his visual art and musical endeavors leave me with a distinct "Was that as good as I thought it was?" melon-twist every time. (Answer: Yes).

In advance of the KWE's appearance at the Battle of the One Man Bands at Café Nela on Dec 28th, Keith and I will be talking about his art and music, sampling tracks from KWE's extensive discography, exploring his influences and current listening habits, and debuting a brand new Christmas carol composed especially for this broadcast!

Tune into Doug Harvey's Less Art Radio Zine live alternate Sundays at 12 noon on KCHUNG in LA’s Chinatown district at 1630 AM or online at www.kchungradio.org - if you miss the broadcast, shows can be accessed through the KCHUNG archive.

Battle of the One Man Bands at Café Nela 1906 Cypress Ave. LA 90065 

9 PM Saturday December 28, 2013

KWE VS Reverend Beat-Man from Bern Switzerland and Becky Lee from Arizona

$9

IMAGES: Keith Walsh's announcement for LARZ; KW Meditational Stones (Celebrities) 2003-2004; KW Astral Body Compound Space/Threshold of Movement 2010; OMB zany style; KW In the Order of Appearance 2005; Battle of the One Man Bands flier.

Jim Shaw & Lari Pittman

Just wanted to urge everyone in LA to make sure they see these two shows before they close on Saturday -- both are spectacular, museum-scaled exhibits from local legends at the peak of their powers, and both include insanely oversized paintings that really need to be experienced in person.

At Blum & Poe, Jim Shaw's giant Mississippi River Mural -- a tattered American landscape scene filtered through a grid of iffy B&W mythological cartoon figures -- is one of his theatrical backdrop adjustments. It includes a sculptural stigmata element, which from a certain angle (see fig 1) reveals a droll reference to Duchamp's Étant donnés.

Lari Pittman's Flying Carpet with a Waning Moon Over a Violent Nation -- a blurry American landscape scene (Native American genocide?) filtered through the portholes of a sinking ship -- is one of three 30-ft wide canvases in his show at Regen Projects. The fourth element in the main gallery is one of the best pieces of the show -- so don't let the big boys stop you from examining the twelve-pack Set Arrangements of Ballet Mécanique for a Fossilized Nation (After Léger), a virtuosically designed set of desaturated Post-Futurist postcards (or calendar pages!).

IMAGES: Jim Shaw Mississippi River Mural 2013 Acrylic on muslin with aqua resin, foam, acrylic and metal rod Mural: approximately 230 x 480 inches Sculpture: 49 1/2 x 27 1/2 x 65 inches (Stigmata donnés detail photo by DH); Lari Pittman Flying Carpet with a Waning Moon Over a Violent Nation 2013 Cel-vinyl, spray enamel on canvas over wood panel 108 x 360 3/8 inches (274.3 x 915.4 cm), Set Arrangements of Ballet Mécanique for a Fossilized Nation (After Léger) 2013 Cel-vinyl and spray enamel on gessoed paper 18 1/8 x 22 1/8 x 1 3/4 inches (46 x 56.2 x 4.4 cm) 12 Drawings

Blum & Poe
2727 S. La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034

Regen Projects
6750 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90038

Rapid-fire XMAS Live Radio Audio Collage Friday Night!

I'll be doing a half-hour XMAS music mashup on KCHUNG on Friday at 7 PM (as part of a 3-hour DJ relay) drawing from my extensive collection of Outsider, experimental, and just plain rockin' holiday music. Along with classic fragments of BJ Snowden, Joseph Spence, David Hasselhoff, Rodd Keith, The Shaggs, Stompin' Tom Conners, and Wesley Willis, I'll be trying to squeeze in a bit of Suicide, XTC, The Ramones, Sonic Youth, and Snoop Dogg, plus meta-collages from Tom Recchion, Michael Waterman, Merzbow, Rick Potts, Corporal Blossom and Mitchell Brown. And much much more! 101 fringe holiday classics in 1/2 hour!! Your Ultimate Value!!! Let's get this party on and over with!!!!

Less Art Radio Zine with Jim Shaw

Well, that went pretty well. Apart from forgetting my cellular telephone, giving everyone the wrong URL and shutting the whole radio station down at the end of my shift. Oh, and I also forgot to get any photos of Jim and me talking and playing records. I did get some awesome shots of the smoking lounge and points beyond though, as seen above.

Fortunately the recordings were all saved before the crash, and the mp3s are now available for DL on the KCHUNG archive. You can navigate from the kchung front page, or go directly to Saturday's page at http://www.kchungradio.org/archive/index.php?path=2013-12-08/

Or I suppose you can just click and save (PC: R click, save target/file as; MAC control+click, save link as) http://www.kchungradio.org/archive/2013-12-08/Doug_Harvey%27s_Less_Art_Radio_Zine-12-08-2013.mp3 or just click it if you want to listen without saving the file. So many options!

I'll get the playlist up in a couple of days, some amazing rare stuff in there... I think I'm going to have to work on my dynamic broadcast personality a little too.

Doug Harvey's Less Art Radio Zine

Beginning Sunday, December 8th 2013 at 12 Noon, LA artist/critic/curator Doug Harvey will be hosting a biweekly hour-long radio show on pirate station KCHUNG. An audio version of his long-running (but intermittent) ‘zine LESS ART, Doug Harvey's Less Art Radio Zine will feature a weekly guest artist with a body of sound art and/or a really interesting record collection, as well as whatever remarkable audio documents demand to be shared. (This date also marks the expansion of KCHUNG’s original programming schedule to Sunday mornings -- adding a dozen new programs to its already extensive battery of DIY DJs.)

Harvey’s premiere guest will be legendary LA artist Jim Shaw, who currently has a major solo exhibit up at Blum & Poe in Culver City, as well as The Hidden World at The Chalet Soiety in Paris -- a show culled from his vast collection of fringe religious/spiritual didactic materials. Shaw may play some recordings from his extensive collection of religious LPs, or his enormous and eclectic music collection in general, but the focus will be on his own musical endeavors – ranging from Destroy All Monsters, the experimental noise band he formed as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan in 1973 with Mike Kelley, Niagara, and Cary Loren, to his current project producing an epic prog-rock musical based on the tenets of his invented 19th-century visionary American religion Oism. Jim will join Doug live in the studio to spin examples from his various musical phases, discuss his inspirations, and possibly perform live.

Artists interested in being guests on Doug Harvey's Less Art Radio Zine, or submitting materials to be broadcast (we are particularly interested in documentation of local phenomena – including artists’ recordings and field recordings of live art music, sound sculptures, etc.) are invited to make contact via facebook message or gmail. Guests should preferably have a concurrent exhibit or event to cross-promote.

Tune into KCHUNG in LA’s Chinatown district at 1630 AM or online at www.kchungradio.org - if you miss the broadcast, shows can be accessed through the KCHUNG archive.