Arcane Candy

Orange County Museum of Art
Newport Beach, California
Feburary 6-May 15, 2005

Beautiful Losers is a group art show curated by Aaron Rose of New York’s Alleged Gallery and Christian Strike of Iconoclast Editions. It debuted in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2004 and has since trotted to numerous cities around the globe. The featured artists–including Thomas Campbell, Cheryl Dunn, Shepard Fairey, Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson, Margaret Kilgallen, Harmony Korine, Geoff McFetridge, Barry McGee, Mike Mills, Steven “Espo” Powers, Aaron Rose, Ed Templeton and numerous others–are tied together by the duel influences of skateboarding and street art. In early 2005, the show made a four-month stop at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, California.

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New Image Art
Los Angeles, California
January 8-February 28, 2005

Read Listen With Your Eyes first. In 2005, Rich Jacobs belched out a flurry of art shows. Raw Dogs, a group effort, was the second one. As its title suggests, the theme of this show featured rough-hewn skateboard-related art penned, penciled, photographed and sculpted by the likes of Bruce Bickyard, Ben Clark, Larry Clark, Garry Davis, Leo Fitzpatrick, Pat Graham, Rich Jacobs, Chris Johanson, Tim Kerr, Matt Leines, Mofo, Neck Face, Rambo, Rot Gut, Allison Snackenberg, Melanie Standage, Ed + Deanna Templeton, Josh Wildman, Tobin Yelland and, as they always say, “more.”

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Four x Four
Los Angeles, California
January 7-February 25, 2005

The friendliest person you’ll ever meet, Rich Jacobs (born 1972) is an internationally acclaimed artist who has exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. He is also the curator of Move, an ongoing series of group art exhibitions that originally started as a homemade art / music ‘zine and record label in the early 1990s.

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The Hammer Museum
Los Angeles, California
May 1-July 29, 2001

Born in 1968 and raised in San Jose, California, Chris Johanson started making art in the mid-1980s, when he festooned his self-published skateboard ‘zine Karmaboarder with ironic cartoons that mashed-up punks, hippies and new age characters in a most hilarious way. Throughout the ’90s, Chris lived in San Francisco, where he continued skating and making art inspired by the harsh realities of life in the Mission District.

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New York, New York
November 19, 2008

This show was a rare treat, even though it was in kind of a weird environment. Liquid Liquid started with no announcement right after the DJ set stopped. They didn’t miss a beat and went right into their set. As predicted, they belted into “Cavern” super casually. [In case you’re unaware, “White Lines” borrowed its famous bassline off of “Cavern.”] No announcement was made, no bad-mouthing Grandmaster Flash. In fact, very little on-stage banter was put forth, aside from some really humble and grateful thank you’s and appreciation. They were just really classic and tasteful.

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New York, New York
November 9, 2008

I walked into a Tony Oursler book signing and heard Tony Conrad totally droning out and feedbacking really loudly. No one was paying any attention at all. I came back a little while later and went to the upstairs part of the gallery and took this photo. It sounded really good. Again, no one was paying attention. He was playing with a woman named MV Carbon, who was on cello. Both of them had tiny Marshal amps that were cranked. It was super good.

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Photo by Randy Randall.

Santa Monica, California
Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Sit back, kick your shoes off and I’ll tell you a little story. It’s a tale of two friends, who will remain nameless, and two shows: My Bloody Valentine at The Palace in Hollywood, California on July 5, 1992 and at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on October 1, 2008. My Bloody Valentine was born in London (by way of Dublin) in 1984 and, by the end of that decade, became the flagship band in a sea of rock called shoegaze, which is a form of modern psychedelia featuring a pounding, repetitive rhythm section smeared with layers of heavily effected, distorted guitars and serene, melodic vocals buried deep in the mix. After releasing their universally acclaimed masterpiece, Loveless, in 1991, the band embarked on a tour the following year.

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San Francsico, California
August 24, 2008

Here’s a photo of Wilco with Nels Cline wailing on guitar with them at the Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park. I curated the art component of this show and got a rad backstage glimpse at what I consider to be one of the raddest Wilco sets ever. The sun was perfect and Nels killed it. It was mind blowing–so much radder than anyone could have hoped for, including myself. Really, it was killer. The drummer is sick and Wilco really pushed it for an alt.country pop group. They took it outside, literally, but brought it back down to Earth in a way very few seem capable of. Really impressive, actually.–Rich Jacobs

Photos enlarge.

Los Angeles, California
August 8, 2008

The concept: 88 drummers play for 88 minutes at 8:08 p.m. on 08-08-08. Can you say numerology? The original Boadrum event, conceived and led by Tokyo band the Boredoms on 07-07-07 in Brooklyn, New York, was so levitating and legendary, that there was no way for mankind to prevent it from re-materializing for a second coming. And that it did a year and a month later, helmed again by the Boredoms at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California and on the same evening by Gang Gang Dance at the Williamsburg Waterfront in Brooklyn. By the time 8:08 p.m. rolled around at the Pits, an unbelievable amount of people, 5,000 strong, formed a gigantic living, breathing donut all around the drummers, as a huge gob of jelly splooged out onto an adjacent grassy knoll. The anticipation crackling in the air was more exciting than the explosion of the Hindenburg. Oh, the humanity!

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Los Angeles, California
May 25, 2008

Malcontents, pot-stirrers, button-pushers and, oh yeah, I almost forgot, musicians the Sun City Girls spent a quarter of a century, from 1982 to 2007, defying logic, expectations, music industry rules, manners and good taste. While most bands are more than happy to jump through any hoops necessary to become famous and successful, the Sun City Girls, for the most part, did just the opposite throughout their illustrious anti-career. No major labels, no tours with huge rock stars, no big-time TV appearances, no hit singles, etc. Despite that, they’ve unleashed a tsunami of records and live shows upon the world.

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