UKreport

If you are in LA go see Aaron's show!! (see below)
TEAM BARR is still in the UK portion of our UK/Europe tour, although nearly to the Europe part. MAJOR THANK YOU'S TO EVERYONE WHO HAS SET UP SHOWS AND COME TO SHOWS! we still have more dates to go, though... if you are interested please go to our OUR MYSPACE PAGE

they fully have this insane hipster/popculture wrapping paper in Manchester...

and giant flossy bmw boombox trucks that I don't think even exist in the states... (the blue van parked in front is our tour van, fyi. It was scared of the encroaching monster floss)


hope everyone is well
...with love from Brighton UK
Brendan

If You Build It...

We worked all week in the gallery installing the show. It's always so amazing to conceive of something in your head and then watch it come to life before your eyes. It is always different than you originally expected, but somehow (if you're lucky) ends up being true to the original spirit. That's certainly the case with this show. Here's a photo of Rita Ackermann hard at work on her wall painting. This thing was incredible!! Not only did she paint these amazing images on the wall, but she also incorporated overhead projections, a zebra fabric curatin and a giant leaning canvas into the mix. The end result was a three dimensional world that brought her images to life in a very theatrical way! (I don't have photos of the finished thing right now, but I'll post when I get them).

Above: a detail of Rita's wall painting in progress.
For those of you who don't know, Gee Vaucher is, she's responsible for all that incredible art that revolved around the band CRASS in the 1980's. She's in her sixties now, and still doing incredible stuff. Tracking her down for this was like a dream come true. If you don't know who crass are, this is their logo. Ring any bells??

Anyway. When I was 14, and first heard CRASS and saw their album art (and booklets and fold out posters) all of which were done my Gee Vaucher my life was totally changed. I wanted to kill my parents and run away to the crass commune in England (where Gee Vaucher still lives!!). So on Friday, this crate arrives from London full of her art for the show and the first thing I pull out is the collage pictured below. It's from 1981 and is the original art for a poster I've looked at thousands of times. The thing was wrapped in some of the oldest bubble wrap I've ever seen, It seemed like it hadn't been pulled out since the 80's. This might sound strange, but the piece smelled punk. There was this musty, depressed feeling about it. Like a time capsule, you could just feel the depression and rebellion of Thatcher-era Britian in the wood and glass and paper. The thing felt dangerous. It is framed behind glass, so my flash kept reflecting, but yu can get an idea here of what's going on. It's serious.


This is one of Gusmano Cesaretti's photos of east Los Angeles in 1973. There are 15 from this series hanging in the show. This is one of my favorites. Back in the day he used to run around with all these young Chicano kids doing graffiti and getting into trouble. These photos, which come from a series called "streetwriters" haven't been seen in over 20 years. This is just a snapshot. the actual prints are a thousand times more powerful. No Age played the opening last night, but I don't have any photos yet. If any good ones turn out I'll post them. Have a nice week.

ISSUE SEVEN!!!

Saturday Night!! Other Scenes and NO AGE!!

portrait of the artist as a middle aged artist sanding his art
...wait, Ed isn't fully middle aged yet... mid-career?
...maybe not that yet either
...but handsome and talented, YESS!
the reason I went Vegan at 19!
I love you Ed
love
Brendan

just in case there was any curiosity about how Jamal Duval files his papers...
and if you live in LA, that show at R+T on saturday will be fucking AMAZING!
One of the most important gallery shows that will happen at anypoint soon...
yessss!

A Quiet Protest

Been working on exhibition titled "OTHER SCENES" that will open this Saturday night at Roberts & Tilton in LA. Last night, the RVCA crew (who are sposoring!) showed up with boxes of freshly minted catalogs for the show!! They are published by Nieves, the coolest little publishing company in Switzerland (www.nieves.ch) and how awesome is this Rita Ackermann image on the cover? The images below are some snaps of some of the spreads...

Daido Moriyama

Jockum Nordstrom

Daniel Higgs

Saturday Night...

...with THE SADS!!
We're playing our first show at Family on Fairfax. If you're in the LA area come by and see us! The Sads are Aaron Rose, Dan Monick, David Scott Stone, Aska Natsuniya. Check out this nice poster Mike Mills made for us...

Oh, and I almost forgot...
ANP QUARTERLY ISSUE SEVEN WENT TO THE PRINTER TODAY!!!

Team of the UK/Europe
It is with great pleasure that I am announcing, yet again, but arguably in a
more formally complete way, the Spring 2007 Full Band BARR UK/Europe Tour in
honor of the record called "Summary."
We hope you are all so well and will be available to come and hang out with us
at one of the events listed below...
YESSSS!!
Love
Brendan Fowler (singer in BARR)

BARR
UK/EUROPEAN TOUR
APRIL
UK
Mon 16 – LONDON - Luminaire w/ NO AGE
Tue 17 – Birmingham – Sunflower Lounge
Wed 18 – Brighton – Po Na Na
Thur 19 – LIVERPOOL – The Magnet
Fri 20 – MANCHESTER – KLONDYKE CLUB
Sat 21 – LINCOLN – Bivouac
Sun 22 – LEEDS - Brudenell Social Club
Mon 23 – EDINBURGH - The Southern
Tue 24 – GLASGOW – Captain’s Rest
Wed 25 – BRISTOL – THE JUNCTION
Thur 26 – LONDON – NOG gallery show / Resonance FM session
EUROPE
Fri 27 – HOLLAND (Amsterdam) – OCCII w/ Partyline
Sat 28 – GERMANY – Bremen - Spedition
Sun 29 –GERMANY – Berlin - Festsaal Kreuzberg Keller
Mon 30 – Czech Republic - Prague – Klub 007
MAY
Tue 1 – AUSTRIA – Vienna - Tuwi
Wed 2 – Trier , GER – Exhaus
Thur 3 – FRANCE – Lyon - Ground Zero
Fri 4 – FRANCE –Paris - La flechedor

Big Photoshoot at RVCA

A bunch of people were summoned to the mothership the other day to be photographed by a bone-fide fashion photographer. Nobody was sure exactly why, but we all assumed it was for some future catalog use. Aaron was asked to wear some pants that would have required him to wear stilts.

So he got busy fixing them up to fit his legs.

Here we are standing for our photo. Brendan and Aaron did fine, Brendan with his 'just coming off a tour' face, and Aaron being 'pensive', but for me, being sorta doughy lately, and always stiff as a board, it was torture.

Big J (J is for John, not joint) is our newly christened subscription manager and everyday DUDE. We pissed of the photog's assistants by continually setting off thier flashes with our litle digi-cameras. Now post some comments you readers, Phylis Diller style. The only fun in posting is getting some reaction from you pathetic website lurkers.

Nuggets from Baltimore

I'm working on an art show that's gonna open on the 21st at Roberts & Tilton in LA (more about that later). More importantly, look at this big, bad Daniel Higgs painting that showed up for it!!!

Party Time.

Last night we went to a party at Mike Mills' house and Mark Borthwick played music.

If you don't know who Mark Borthwick is, he's an amazing photographer. This is an example of one of his photos.

He also does installations and films. He made a movie for Cat Power a few years ago. It's the one where she's playing music in the trees. This is one of his installations:

His performance last night consisted of him kind of screaming and making strange noises on his guitar. He passed out noisemakers to the assembled audience and we all participated in a few songs. Ed Templeton was there and said that sometimes when he's at home in suburbia he always fantasizes about LA people and all the weird stuff they must be doing up in the hills. He wasn't disappointed last night. It got trippy.

It was a beautiful night.

first to-be-continued-posting that is actually continued


Okay, so this is the Pistol in Kansas City. THIS PLACE RULES. Huge space, amazing people running it, and this insane giant Pistol set up where the bands play, which is kind of crazy, but really actually super amazing, right? They actually have this. (guest model, Corey BASSLORD Dieckman)



This is Kevin, he lived in Kansas City his whole life, I think, until he moved to New York in January. He flew home to KC to visit his team and shred the fuck out of this show as a special hometwon hero guest. Kevin, you rule so much! Thank yo for everything!



This is Kevin and his homie Griffin, who seems to be about to make the best zine in the history of earth... detail to follow when the thing is done... oh, I just to-be-continued it again! Yikes! ...but this one is going to take a while I think... Griffin, when are you gonna be done with that thing? Email me!

and lastly... (how funny and dumb does "lastly" sound? —wait, I don't feel like looking, but Ed or Aaron, if either of you two have ever said "lastly" in a post, I'm sorry. I was fully just making fun of myself, I swear!)



"cool it, pup-a-razzi!"
oh my.

I have been realizing...

That there are a lot of shoe nerds out there.

Who Is This Woman??

Why is she here???

This is not a comment on Chan Marshal, or Karl Lagerfeld, but somehow in the midst of shaking hands, Chan's left hand became her right hand... right?

I mean, this actually happened. Click the one below... detail

Whoah.

Chan, if you're reading this, how did it happen?
.