“Garland is a superb, crazily imaginative songwriter. Singing through a synclavier or banging on a piece of Styrofoam, he’ll sing about how insane the nightly news is, how painful true love is, how scary getting to know other people is, and it all quietly creeps up and hits you right where you live.”
—Kyle Gann, Village Voice

Upon first meeting David Garland a decade ago in NYC, what moved me most was the man’s remarkable voice. David has what I’ve often referred to as an “NPR voice”: calm, gentle, assured, reflective of a deep and kindly intelligence. I could happily listen to him recite the phone book, or Goodnight Moon, or Nietzche’s “Wahnbriefe” for hours on end. It’s no coincidence that he hosts and curates one of my all-time favorite radio shows, WNYC’s Spinning on Air. (If you have any interest in off-the-beaten-path, non-commerce-driven music, you should bookmark that link immediately.)

Photo by Anne Garland.

David’s also a gifted singer/composer, infusing his “control songs” with all of the qualities mentioned above. He’s been keeping busy recording new material with everyone from Sufjan Stevens to Greg Saunier to Diane Cluck. Catching up with me by phone recently, he said he’d just finished shooting his first music video with none other than Amber Benson and Adam Busch. (SQUEEE!!) Here’s what David had to say about the events leading up to their collaboration:

My wife Anne Garland and I had been introduced to the joys of Buffy the Vampire Slayer by our son Kenji in the summer of 2007. Anne and I were happily working our way through the many seasons of Buffy, and had just recently seen Amber’s character Tara killed by Adam’s character Warren. We went out to an Indian restaurant for lunch and waiting in line just ahead of us were Amber and Adam. We got talking, learned of Adam’s band Common Rotation, and enjoyed one another’s company. We’ve done a few projects together since, and now this video. Adam and Amber are creative, generous people, apparently willing to get involved in a project just for the fun and love of it, and I’ve really enjoyed hanging out and making stuff with them. Amber really likes Anne’s Luminous Playhouse photos, and suggested the effective idea of mixing and comparing the miniature and full-size scenes as a visual theme for my song “Diorama.” We borrowed a super-8 camera from Ken Brown and in two intense afternoons shot the footage, Amber and Adam co-directing and filming.

David, it’s an honor and a pleasure to premiere that video here on Coilhouse. Thank you, as always, for your wise and beautiful voice.

Diorama from David Garland on Vimeo. Directed, filmed and edited by Amber Benson and Adam Busch. David Garland’s songs “Prelude” and “Diorama” from the album Noise In You on Family Vineyard. Featuring Anne Garland’s Luminous Playhouse Theater Company. Singers: David Garland, Diane Cluck, Sufjan Stevens, and Mira Romantschuk. Appearing in the film are David Garland, Kenji Garland, his friend Aurora Cobb, Viking Moses (Brendon Massei), Golden Ghost (Laura Goetz), and Anne Garland.

More Garland-related clips, links and images after the jump.

“Like a caged beast, born of a caged beast, born of a caged beast, born of a caged beast, born dead and then…” –Samuel Beckett

Stills from Olivier de Sagazan’s 1998 sculptural performance work, Eye and the Chair.

Joe Haskins just alerted me to this astounding piece of performance art by a man named Olivier de Sagazan, titled Return to Close:

Clayface, for real.

Olivier de Sagazan has an appropriately unsettling site with a wide array of stills and clips from his live installations, as well as an image gallery of sublimely horrific sculptures. There doesn’t seem to be much web content on him written in native English. If any of our French (or is it Belgian?) speaking readers have information about this fascinating fellow available, it’d be wonderful to discover more about the man and his singularly beastly, loamy work!

I’ve recently found myself drawn to art that simply, honestly makes me happy. After years of looking at and blogging about all manner of darque art, all I crave right now are images that make me feel like a child – not in the helpless sense, but in terms of wonderment and the belief that the world is a magical place that opens up to me. Earlier this week, I mentioned that Hirotoshi Ito’s sculptures that had that effect on me, and now I’ve uncovered someone else whose work makes me feel this: Amy Ross.

On her blog, NatureMorph, Ross imagines herself as a mad scientist. As she writes in her artist’s statement:

My drawings offer visual hypotheses to the question: what would happen if the DNA sequence of a plant or mushroom were spliced with that of an animal? Using graphite, watercolor, and walnut ink on paper as well as directly on gallery walls in site-specific installations, I portray animals morphed with branches, mushrooms, berries, and blossoms, thus forming implausible hybrid creatures. These images subvert the traditional genre of botanical illustration by approaching the close study of the natural world through the lens of genetic engineering and mutation gone awry.

I’ve seen similar ideas before – in paintings, in fiction, in taxidermy – but Ross’s gentle treatment feels somehow different, familiar. Perhaps the explanation for that sense is as simple as these pictures reminding me of illustrations from a long-forgotten storybook, or flashbacks to picking mushrooms as a child (a common family activity in Russia). Could I have stumbled on one of these, at an age too early to remember, before it scampered out of sight? One can hope.

Sketch of a tenrec

It’s time for another tribute to the greatest photo-sharing experience the Web has to offer, Flickr. This installment does not showcase one of the many talented photographers and artists decking Flickr’s halls with their creations, but a different breed of flickr-er [flickree? flickroo?] – the curator. Flickr user MyVintageVogue uploads hundreds of incredible scans from vintage fashion magazines. These images, dating between the 1920s and 60s, fill me with daily awe of the elegance of old-school photography.

The immaculate make-up and hair, jaw-dropping composition and strict tailoring not only hold up but are excellent examples of Doing It Right. Some of these actually remind me of Nadya’s work, which brings me to another observation: fetish themes. My opinion is colored by years of admiring fetish photography, but just look at this image from Vogue Magazine, 1957!

And how about this Horst P. Horst shoe revelry from 1941?

And there is so much more! Between the impossible silhouettes, futuristic elements and avant-garde designs you’re guaranteed to slip into a trance while browsing this photo-stream. Tread with caution before you click the jump – a bounty of MyVintageVogue eye candy awaits!

While one might think LA is a constantly-bumping party, culture and art zone, this isn’t always true. There are dry spells, unless you’re into the Sunset Strippin’, bar-hopping scene. This weekend, however, promises to be rather eventful. At 8 pm on Friday, The Machine Project [got my membership card in the mail last night!] has a lecture by Mark Allen on the topic of How Molecules Move Electrons – hardcore! And Saturday there is an art walk in Chinatown and, and, AND! A screening of Bill Morrison‘s short films at the at the Silent Movie Theater. You might remember this post by Mer showcasing Bill’s heart-stoppingly beautiful film, Light is Calling.

Still from Light Is Calling

The forgotten becomes unforgettable in the exquisite 35mm shorts of justly celebrated filmmaker Bill Morrison, known for his groundbreaking feature Decasia. Resisting the lures of kitsch, nostalgia and winking sarcasm, Morrison’s found footage films could be described as seances or invocations, playing on the idea of the motion picture as a kind of spiritual lost-and-found. Works like Light is Calling and The Mesmerist, which draw from damaged nitrate prints, let time perform its own commentary on the image. The Highwater Trilogy, a response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, looks at the representation of disaster through beautifully scarred archival clips. In these hauntological shadowplays, figures vanish into the flood of history, only to reemerge as ghostly apparitions and unreal visions. Also on the program are The Film Of Her and Outerborough.

The Silent Movie Theater can be found at 611 N Fairfax Avenue, LA. The tickets are $10 and the magic starts at 7:30.

Still from Decasia

Last week I had the dubious pleasure of hosting miss Molly Crabapple for a few days. She’s been gone just 48 hours, yet already I am longing for her presence every time I smell vodka or find long raven locks in my tub [which I am definitely not saving to braid into a tiny Molly-shaped doll]. This young lady gets mention around here with some regularity, and she deserves every bit of it. Founder of Doctor Sketchy’s Anti Art School, illustrator, columnist, and comic book artist, this NYC beauty has the world at her fingertips.

Seizing the rare opportunity of her presence, we attempted a video interview over cocktails. Watch the very, very informal results below – Molly talks about an upcoming European tour, working large-scale and a brand new comic book, Scarlett Takes Manhattan. Please forgive the awkward editing – I’m trying to spare you screeching and inappropriate touching.

Journalism uber alles! Click the jump for other fantastical drawings by Molly, including Marie Claire – one of the beautiful Rococo paper dolls she created for Coilhouse Magazine. The other doll is Monsieur Pierre – her fetching young suitor. Want to see him and their spectacular outfits? You’ll have to get your issue of Coilhouse 2! More can be found on Molly’s website, MollyCrabapple.com

Orlando (5”x5”x4”). Antique brass findings and hardware, leather, velvet, wood, tacks, cast/painted plastic, glass eyes.

Damn you, Hollyweirdos! You get to have all the Joslin fun. *shakes fist* As I write this, the astounding Madame Jessica J. (featured extensively in Coilhouse Issue 01) is over at the Billy Shire Gallery prepping a cavalcade of her Wunderkammer critters for the show’s opening reception tomorrow (Saturday).

Lambert & Salvia (8″x10″x22″) Antique hardware and findings, bone, brass, beads, leather, velvet, trim, coat hook, model cannon, glass eyes.

Trying to picture the Joslin lovebirds mounting a show is always a bit dangerous for me, prompting ardent fantasies of Jessica and Jared donning drum major uniforms and marching their whimsies down the street and through the door in step to a demented chiptune rendition of “76 Trombones” before shooing various characters onto pedestals, canvases and placard hooks. (There’s usually some whip-and-chair action in there as well, but… uh… I digress.)

Anyhoo. Jessica’s been working on these “Clockwork Circus” beasties for months now. They’re as winsomely exquisite as anything she’s crafted yet. If you’re in the area, go get acquainted.

Aster (27”x19.5”x10”) Antique brass findings and hardware, bone, leather, antique vestment trim, velvet, brass bullet casings, chain, silver, snakeskin, glass eyes.

Click below to view a couple more of Jessica Joslin’s “Clockwork” creatures.

[EDIT] Oh! One more thing! I’m sure Jessica wouldn’t mind us mentioning this here… Heads up, Phillyfreaks! If you’re not already all swoony and spent from Laura Kicey’s reception (or even if you are) and you’re feeling piney for something to do tonight (Friday), you probably shouldn’t miss the Mutter Museum “Disco Inferno Dance Party” for ANYTHING IN THE WORLD. What better way to celebrate the museum’s 150th anniversary than some inspired booty-shaking amidst the bones and tumors? Go, go, go!

Inside your Issue 2 of Coilhouse Magazine you’ll find a love letter to Los Angeles that talks about some of my favorite places in this Angel City Desert. Near the top of the list is The Machine Project– a modern-day salon dedicated to zapping life into this city, one lecture/field trip/class/performance at a time. Art space, home of Dorkbot SoCal [another one coming up this Saturday!], miniature lecture hall and experimental kitchen, this place has hosted some of the best events in town. Visitors enjoy a friendly atmosphere and beer as the boundaries between art and science melt away.

Hekla Dögg Jónsdóttir at Machine Project. Original here.

Places like this are indispensable, especially here in big bad disjointed Los Angeles. They cultivate community, learning and provide outlets to brilliant outsiders rarely seen elsewhere. You want Alt Culture? Here it is. The Machine Project mission statement, from the Epic FAQ:

Machine Project exists to encourage heroic experiments of the gracefully over-ambitious. We provide educational resources to people working with technology, we collaborate with artists to produce site-specific works, and we promote conversations between scientists, poets, technicians, performers, and the community of Los Angeles as a whole.

Tabla workshop at Machine Project. Original here.

I’ve been an occasional attendee for years now, but this is changed today, when I become an official Member. You see, I received some sad news in my inbox recently. It seems the economy is kicking my beloved Machine square in its mechanical nuts! This wonderful place need help, and it needs help now. Fortunately, helping such an awesome organization is easy and fun. Here are the ways you can be part of The Machine Project:

• donate $128 or whatever level is right for you to become a current member of Machine
• give an additional gift to help this urgent campaign
• purchase workshop gift certificates for the crafty, the restless or the electronically inclined (Sewing, Arduino, electronics, MaxMSP are our staples, but many more are likely to follow)
• do some extravagant shopping from their online book store

All photos in this post are © Laura Kicey. Please do not repost without permission and a credit.

“I take the things I see in these places out of their realm and ask the viewer to see what has been overlooked. I prefer to use what I encounter in raw form, creating visual order by giving new context to what I have singled out.”

–Photographer Laura Kicey

Laura Kicey and I both joined the now-thriving shutterbug site Flickr aeons ago when it was still in beta, and Laura hit the ground running. She’s been uploading all manner of strange beauty captured with her camera –from off-kilter self-portraits to innovative “Construct” collage work to ongoing documentation of an abandoned asbestos factory— for several years now. Laura’s also a terrific memoirist, so living vicariously through her stealthy, sometimes dangerous adventures is quite the visceral thrill.

She says “my goal for every image is to build an experience that invokes all the senses as intensely as I witnessed,” and with her astute attention to texture, gradations of color, and composition, she succeeds. Really, the only thing missing is Smell-O-Vision.  (Scratch n’ sniff truck-stop motel charnel, anyone?)

Her portraits of derelict, hollow houses remind me again and again of the creeping, wistful quality of certain passages from House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, or the long, lonely, thriving takes in a Tarkovsky film.

Living Rooms, a series of her photographs of abandoned home interiors, will be showing through the month of January at Café Estelle in Philadelphia. Locals who stop by Laura’s reception today (Friday) between 6 and 9pm will get a chance to meet the flame-haired swashbuckler in person. Pass on a fist-bump from her old chum Theremina, won’t you?

• laurakicey.com
• A slideshow of Kicey’s Flickr portfolio
• Her online photo blog and journal

Click below for more haunting images.

We here at Coilhouse are enthusiastic proponents of body mods. Be it through hair, fashion or tattoos, we’re all about the power of transformation! Sandy Paws Grooming Shop feels the same way.

If you’re in California and possess a large curly canine, you can call up Sandy Paws for a transformation of your pets’ very own. A cut, a color and a bit of vision go a long way, as these images prove. Why settle for a pedestrian poodle when you can have a blue peacock? Or, how about a camel, a ninja turtle, or even a dragon?

Don’t let your furry friends protest! After all – what do they know about beauty? Here is their chance to transcend their earthly shell and be born anew. This is no time for reservation, so don’t be shy. Let your fantasy run wild and they’ll thank you in the end. ..Right? You decide, while you check out some of my other favorites under the jump.