The Murder City Devils came through on Sunday on their West Coast reunion tour. I can’t express how much this band, both musically and as people, have affected my life. To have them back, and bringing so many people together, has been amazing. I started out taking pictures at their earliest shows (I know that some of my first rolls of film are of them before their first album came out). Below are some more pictures from the show, and the entire set is here.

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The Things That Exist from Beautiful/Decay Magazine on Vimeo.

Freelance video created by Something In The Universe for the SCION Installation 5 Art Tour.

Video by: Fei Liu, Donnie Luu, Ricky Jonsson
Audio: Chris Devlin of Spankrock

Jawbreaker – “Kiss The Bottle” live at McGregor’s in Elmhurst, Il on 8/23/1992.

Let It Bleed (Left) Let It Be (Right), The Stones And The Beatles Getting Tweaked At The Same Time, 2008 from yoshi sodeoka on Vimeo.

Let It Bleed (Left) Let It Be (Right), The Stones And The Beatles Getting Tweaked At The Same Time, 2008 from yoshi sodeoka on Vimeo.

via Rhizome

New Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album coming out. Who’s stoked?

Thanks Zane.

From the blurb:
“A Battles collaboration with celebrated light artists UVA (United Visual Artists), produced by Warp Films (This Is England, Rubber Johnny, Dead Mans Shoes etc.).”

While I love the song, what interests me more about this is the video as snapshot of a particular time, both artistically and politically. I love it.

A few years back, I lost my record/CD collection (it’s a long and heartbreaking story that I am not going to get into) and since then, I have taken that as an opportunity to rebuild my collection, digitally, from the ground up. In that time, I have amassed a collection of 10,000 songs, which translates to about 1,100 albums. Not bad. Of course, the upkeep on a collection like that is fairly daunting, if you want to keep artist names, album names, song titles, and play order correct. (I do. One of the quirks of being an artist myself is that I respect how other artists title and order their work)

One of the things that I have really latched onto though is the cover art, and more specifically the iTunes feature, CoverFlow. It allows for a digital copy of the artist’s work to be identified with the unique artwork that they create for the music. Since the 1960′s, cover art has been inseparable from the music that it represents, becoming a part of the musical experience. Except now as we move to a time when music files exist on their own, sans artwork. Of course, CoverFlow is a great step forward by allowing us to have a visual connection to the aural experience, but it by no means replaces the experience of physical packaging. (Think of Led Zepplin’s Physical Graffiti, the vinyl version) That, however, will be sorely missed. But we were already on a downhill slide, as far as packaging is concerned, from records (which had the most real estate), to CDs, and throw cassettes in there where ever you like. (Although, if you remember, the first CDs to come out had large packaging, and a lot of real estate for artwork, but those got a lot of static from environmentalists who were concerned about waste, and were phased out of production in favor of the packaging we have now. And you had to throw the exterior packaging away anyway.)

Design Observer had an article relating to this awhile back that is worth a read too, although it is a bit pessimistic. Personally, I am happy with CoverFlow (although there a few quirks with the program) in theory, as I am able to have that connection between the music and the visuals. My hope is that we will be able to also have liner notes, production notes, etc. along side the cover art at some point, completing the experience.