Oh, HAI, gorgeous!

Our Creative Director, the indelible, unstoppable Courtney Riot, is a quarter-of-a-century old today. It’s been an eventful and revolutionary year for the Most Badass Graphic Designer of Her Generation, so let us take a minute to mark the occasion of her birth with solemnly raised fists, and this animated panda gif:

Should ye be feelin’ extra sinister, you can continue to celebrate Courtney’s relentless Reign of Amazingness with a Coilhouse-curated collection of Riotcentric YouTube clips, embedded below.

We love ya, Art Star. Can’t wait to show the world what you’ve got in the works for Issue 06. Have a fantastic day.

A glimpse of the Helpless Corpses Enactment film shoot. Photo by Meredith Yayanos and Gooby Herms.

Click here to download a free Coilhouse Magazine PDF: Lives Transformed Through the Power of Confusing Music: Nils Frykdahl on Art and Kinship.

With solemnity, gratitude and a touch of sorrow, Coilhouse must acknowledge that Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, the most gloriously unclassifiable American band currently in existence, is about to call it quits. After a dozen relentless years of composing, recording, touring and performing some truly jaw-dropping music, the Oakland-based vanguards will play four final shows later this week in California: one in San Diego on April 7th, one in Los Angeles on April 8th, and two in San Francisco, both on April 10th (the evening show sold out, so they added a matinee).

Throughout the late nineties and all of the aughts, the legendary DIY road warriors of SGM crisscrossed the continental United States two, sometimes three times a year (and later on, toured Europe). Arriving at venues like a cheerful doomsday circus in their beautifully renovated vintage Green Tortoise bus, the curators entertained audiences with everything from puppet shows to Butoh dance to passionate readings of Italian Futurist manifestos. Flustered reviewers and reluctant converts, determined to pigeonhole SGM, labeled the avant-garde act as everything from neo-RIO (Rock in Opposition) to avant-prog metal, to grindcore funk theater, to, in the words of one concertgoer, “Satanic Anarchic Viking Shit”. But none of these descriptors come anywhere near encapsulating the band’s eclectic sound, style, or ethos. Not even close.

SGM on tour, 2009. Photo by Olivia Oyama.

The quintet has penned lyrics inspired by the Unabomber, James Joyce, madness, stroke-stricken baby doctors, love, death, cockroaches, and the end of the world. They have employed strange, esoteric contraptions from various folk traditions as well as several homemade instruments, such as the Viking Row-Boat, the Wiggler, the Spring-Nail Guitar, and a brutal, seven feet long piano-stringed bass behemoth called The Log. They have developed stage shows with stark lighting and elaborate costumes, sporting tooth black and spiked leather gauntlets and bonnets and bihawks and military khaki and antique lace nighties. They have sung lilting post-modern folk melodies. They have delivered face-melting blasts of pure, untrammeled metal.

They have rocked harder, more intelligently, and with more unabashed strangeness than anyone else around.

They will go down in legend.

Take comfort in knowing that these final shows won’t be the very last we’ll hear/see of them–the band has a comprehensive live DVD compilation in the works, as well as short film called The Last Human Being, and a final album. (We’ll be sure to announce all of those here when they’re released.)

Photo of Nils Frykdahl by Mikel Pickett.

In honor of the band, and to give our readers another peek at the variety of stuff we cover in the print magazine, Coilhouse is offering this free PDF download of our interview with Nils Frykdahl of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (as well as Idiot Flesh, Faun Fables, and several other acts) printed in Issue Three, summer of 2009.

Frykdahl is a fascinating artist with a lot of delight and wisdom to share. That goes for all of the curators of SGM, truly. (Nils, Dan, Carla, Matthias, Michael, Shinichi, Frank, Moe! et al: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Lots of love, and best of luck with all of your future endeavors.)

Click here to download a free Coilhouse Magazine PDF: Lives Transformed Through the Power of Confusing Music: Nils Frykdahl on Art and Kinship.

Love, love, love, LOVE, LOVE these ladies. Holy moly. So much love.

Originally featured on NOWNESS, this sweet, sharp short by filmmaker Lina Plioplyte is an inspiring glimpse into the lives of senior sartorialists– all of whom photographer Ari Seth Cohen has featured on his Advanced Style blog over the past couple of years.

Cohen’s mission is as follows: to document “men and woman over 50 who are stylish, creative and vital” and to offer “proof from the wise and silver-haired set that personal style advances with age.” For younger clothes horses who view our wardrobe as a medium for artistic self-expression, the short also offers an uplifting peek into one possible future.

The Idiosyncratic Fashionistas! Filmed/photographed by Ari Seth Cohen.

Cohen, speaking with NOWNESS about the Advanced Style ethos:

Walking around New York taking photographs, I noticed how many young girls are appropriating style from older women: leopard print, fur, turbans and hats. In general, the older women wear these things naturally, with more confidence. With the blog I not only want to show that older women are vital and creative, but also to show people [they need not be] afraid of aging—and personal style is a great way to showcase this. [...] What is important to me is self-expression and what might inspire others.

(Via Sarah Masear, thanks!)

Washington-based Margo Selski paints surreal scenes of a neo-Renaissance. Filled with mysterious be-ruffed princesses, white rabbits, royal regalia and strange technology, her style evokes Flemish painting’s glory days. Much of Margo’s current work features this young model:

This is Theo, the artist’s twelve-year-old son, who has been cross-dressing since the age of seven. Margo comments:

Theo is starting to receive a lot of hostility from his peers in our little town in rural Washington about his cross-dressing. He has little control in his world. These paintings are a reminder to him that, although the world around you tells you that you don’t belong, the world around you can change. These paintings give him control.

She has created an entire series, dedicated to Theo, that places him in gorgeous fantasy settings and roles, crowned, holding scepters, often wearing beautiful gowns – all in an effort to empower him during this difficult, disorienting time.

Margo’s artistic celebration of her son reminds me, just a little, of Irina Ionesco’s photos of her daughter, Eva. Though Theo isn’t ever pictured nude, I wonder if Margo might one day see similar criticism: “Are these paintings empowering? Exploitative? Both?” Personally, I think they’re stunning and look forward to meeting both the artist and the muse this weekend.

“Hitherto and Henceforth”, a solo show dedicated to Margo’s recent work, opens this Saturday March 12 at Glass Garage gallery in West Hollywood, with Margo and Theo in attendance. Hope to see you there!

Hit the jump for more images.

Sure, most of us can wholeheartedly agree that FOX NEWS SUCKS. But credit must be given where it’s due: they handled their recent interview with a vampire scrappy, sharp-toothed home owner respectfully and professionally:

Via Eric Cheng, thanks!

While there’s no doubt that FOX aired this segment knowing full well it would go viral and bump their ratings, the story of homeowner Patrick Rogers turning the tables on a life-draining bank like Wells Fargo would be a joy to hear even if he wasn’t a darque and sultry creature of eternal night.

After the bank tried to bully Rogers into paying an outrageous insurance premium, the black-clad, fanged resident of Philadelphia, PA, found a little-known, 30 year-old law, and successfully foreclosed on them. Ha!

Here’s an extended trailer for a documentary feature in production on the late, great musician Rowland S. Howard:

Looks like it’s going to be a phenomenal biography. Produced by Ghost Pictures, Autoluminescent features candid conversations about the man’s gutwrenchingly beautiful guitar-playing and his tumultuous life with everyone from Nick Cave to Lydia Lunch to Nick Zinner to Gudrun Gut to Henry Rollins to Mick Harvey to Thurston Moore to Jim Sclavunos… brandishing a banana.

It’s currently slated for a Summer 2011 release. HELL YEAH.

“If you want to be a different fish, you gotta jump out of the school.”
– Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart.

Born January 15, 1941. Died December 17, 2010.

Photo by Anton Corbijn, 1980.

He was one of the most singularly strange, goading, galvanizing musicians of the 20th century. We were very lucky to have him. From AllMusic:

…Captain Beefheart was one of modern music’s true innovators. The owner of a remarkable four-and-one-half octave vocal range, he employed idiosyncratic rhythms, absurdist lyrics and an unholy alliance of free jazz, Delta blues, latter-day classical music and rock & roll to create a singular body of work virtually unrivaled in its daring and fluid creativity. While he never came even remotely close to mainstream success, Beefheart’s impact was incalculable, and his fingerprints were all over punk, new wave and post-rock.

Rest in peace.

\m/ Jingle Hell rock. \m/

LacyCute20‘s dad Bob says: “SLAYER!! I HAVE BEEN A FAN FOR OVER 20 YEARS AND THIS TOOK ME A LONG TIME TO DO.WATCHING IT IN PERSON WAS AWESOME. DEDICATED TO SLAYER AND ALL THE FANS!!!!! SLAYERBOBT SOUTHERN CA. P.S. THIS IS MY DAUGHTERS ACCOUNT SO DONT PAY ATTENTION TO THE GIRLY STUFF!!!! SLAYER RULES .THIS IS DONE USING LIGHTORAMA CONTROLLERS.THE LIGHTS AT THE END OF THE SONG ARE ON FOR ONLY A TENTH OF A SECOND AT A TIME.REALLY INTENSE…THIS WAS UP IN 2009 .NOW THAT ITS A BIG HIT I WILL BE PROGRAMMING A NEW SONG FOR 2010 AND GET IT UP HOPEFULLY BEFORE XMAS.”

Experimental musical duo The Books are highly thoughtful and empathic scavengers and re-interpreters who’ve been surprising and delighting audiences for over a decade now. Paul de Jong and Nick Zammuto’s songs –a strange melange of acoustic melodies (cello, guitar, banjo, etc.) spliced together with an ever-expanding library of “found sounds”– are dense with samples lifted from home recording cassettes plundered from thrift stores, as well as bootlegged video tapes. They also cut and paste sounds recorded from children’s toys and random non-musical objects to create looping percussive beds. The resulting music is off-kilter yet tightly controlled, and often unexpectedly danceable.

This chaos-wrangling, ephemera-pillaging style is well-represented visually by the music video for “Cold Freezin’ Night”, a weird 80s schoolyard disco taunt off their latest album, The Way Out:

via Dustykins once again. (Girl, you really gotta start blogging for us!)

I can’t stop looking at pictures of Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned. This should come as no surprise to long-time readers of the blog, given both my love of chic politician Yulia Tymoshenko (obsessively chronicled here and here) and interest in Islamic fashion blogging, its tensions between faith, religion, fashion, and personal style.

In the image above, Mozah (51, mother of seven, the second of the Emir’s three wives) looks like she just killed James Bond.  (And I say that with perfect love and awe. Because Bond is such a douche.) Mozah’s bio in the Forbes Top 100 Most Powerful Women list reads:

The wife of the Emir of Qatar has used her growing influence to promote education and development in the Arab world and in her country, home to gas-rich reserves and Al-Jazeera (owned by her husband). This past May, Sheikha Mozah toured the U.S. giving speeches on Western misconceptions of Muslim women and the need to combat violence by eradicating poverty and hopelessness. Sheikha Mozah recently announced the creation of the Arab Foundation for Democracy with a $10 million endowment from the emir. The foundation will encourage the development of a civil society and freedom of the press, among other things. Sheikha Mozah already promotes free speech through the Doha Debates, monthly forums of controversial topics featuring guest speakers like Israeli president Shimon Peres. One of her biggest achievements is Education City, a 2,500-acre campus outside of Doha that is home to branches of Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon and Virginia Commonwealth universities.

Blogs such as HuffPo and ONTD have already caught on to Mozah’s fierceness, and equally fascinating are her presence and drive. In the clip below, she discusses one of her biggest projects, Education City. (By the way! In keeping with her sharp personal style, Mozah’s Education City has some incredible, futuristic architectural designs, worthy of a blog post of their own). She’s the kind of person who inspires me to write characters, research cultures, make stories. What’s it like to be her? What would be like if you added a little fiction to it? Like… maybe some science fiction? More images of Mozah, after the jump. [Via Holly Jones].