I have four watercolors on view now in:

THIS IS A PERFORMANCE, a group exhibition curated by SAM GORDON
at ARTIST CURATED PROJECTS featuring work by:

JIBZ CAMERON, JAKE EWERT, DANIEL FEINBERG, KELTIE FERRIS, DAPHNE FITZPATRICK, JACOB ROBICHAUX, REBECCA SCHIFFMAN, A.L. STEINER,
WESLEY WILLIS

Flyer by Teddy Blanks

This Wednesday, December 2, I will be opening again for Teddy Blanks at my new favorite venue, Bar 9, in Hell’s Kitchen.  Special guest Annie Ragz will start the night out at 8pm.  No Cover.  For more details go to the SHOWS page.

The non-profit, artist-run gallery, The Bas-Fisher Invitational, located in Miami and where Javier Hernandez and I had a two-person show in 2006 called ‘Faster Sleeper,’ has just released its first limited edition portfolio of prints by 12 artists, including me.

Below is my two-color silkscreen print.  There are many crazy awesome different prints in this portfolio.  Contact the gallery to see more.

“Untitled (iPhone)” 2009

From the BFI website:

The first BFI portfolio celebrates the five year anniversary of the BFI.  It includes prints by twelve past artists, keeping the edition size small at 15 with 12 artist proofs. All of the proceeds of this benefit will go towards matching the Knight Arts Challenge Grant awarded to the BFI from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. This “matching” grant provides the BFI funding to maintain year-round programming including exhibitions, lectures and other community events as a zero-profit, non-commercial gallery space.

Artists included in the portfolio edition:

Kevin Arrow, Alejandro Cardenas, Clifton Childree, Jessica Dickinson, Harlan Erskine, Freegums” aka Alvaro Ilizarbe, Federico Nessi, Rebecca Schiffman, Francine Spiegel, Jen Stark, Mike Taylor, Jonathan Thomas

The portfolio set is available for an introductory price of $3800.00.
For purchases and inquiries, write to us at: info@basfisherinvitational.com

What would Burt Bacharach Do?  I wish I knew while looking for this next chord.

Also, this is what Hal David looks like:

Hal David wrote most of the lyrics for Burt Bacharach’s music including “Alfie,” in my opinion and limited knowledge, one of the world’s most perfect “songs.”

I love Men (with a capital “M”.)

Last night I was honored to perform at Mitchell-Innes & Nash as part of an evening celebrating the launch of Justine Kurland’s newest photography book ‘This Train is Bound for Glory’ (Ecstatic Peace Library, 2009) as well as the closing of her exhibition of the same name.

Justine Kurland, Ghost Town CSX, 2007

Thurston Moore

Rebecca Schiffman (Photo by Melanie Berliet)

Luke Roberts

The non-profit Miami-based gallery, The Bas-Fisher Invitational celebrated its 5-year anniversary last night with a benefit and unveiled a limited edition portfolio called ‘Wow We Have Come This Far’ of prints by thirteen artists including myself.

The BFI was founded in 2004 by artists Hernan Bas and Naomi Fisher and is currently run by Naomi Fisher and Jim Drain.

Artists in the portfolio:

Kevin Aaron, Alejandro Cardenas, Clifton Childree, Jessica Dickinson, Harlan Erskine, “Freegums” aka Alvaro Ilizarbe, Frederico Nessi, Rebecca Schiffman, Francine Spiegel, Jen Stark, Mike Taylor, and Jonathan Thomas.

Red Bucket Films has posted the first few episodes of The Talk Show and I am the first musical guest! Check it out. I think it’s very funny.

TALK SHOW episode 1

Stills:

I have decided to start releasing each song as I finish it, as a digital single.

Buy it now for a mere 99 cents!

I wrote and recorded this first single, Me and Katie on the U.E.S. a few years ago, and am sending it out to the ever shrinking world of paying-for-music-customers before I finish up some newer stuff.  Because I still love this song!

It’s about my best friend Katie and I growing up on the Upper East Side. We grew up in the same building and were in the same class at Spence.  In 2006, some NYU kids e-mailed me asking if I would let them engineer a song of mine at the Clive Davis School of Recording for homework.  I was saving all my material for my next album (To Be Good for a Day) so I had to come up with something last minute.  I wanted to write a song like Stay Free, one of my favorite songs by The Clash, and actually written by lead guitarist Mick Jones. I think (I hope) it ended up sounding a little like The Clash meets Avril Lavigne.

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Me and Katie on The U.E.S. credits: Jay Israelson produced and mixed, Ryan Stratton played bass and guitar, Kris King played drums, Rebecca Schiffman wrote words and music and sang and made the little artwork collage, Luke Taylor and Calpin Hoffman engineered.

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I’m a pretty slow songwriter, sometimes only writing two a year, so to push myself a little harder, and hopefully improve my songwriting skills, my goal for 2010 is to write, record, and release at least one song every tax quarter.  Or, I guess you could say, season.

I’ve felt frustrated and SAD in the past to have sat on some songs for over six years while waiting to have enough material to release a full album.  Songs can start to feel stale and by the time the album comes out I no longer want to perform them.  I guess I didn’t have to be so tied to it in the first place, but the album for album’s sake format is officially obsolete now that the media on which music is available has totally changed.

So, now I will be able to record each song in its own style, without having to maintain some sort of artificial cohesion with other songs.  And each song can have it’s own artwork!  Each song will also be the potential ground on which to collaborate with more producers, musicians, and artists.

In the works for the 1st Quarter 2010 release- a collaboration with producers Jay Israelson and Diego Duenas, and artist Michael Q. Shea.

Photo by Stephen Kosloff of me performing in a Chainmaille dress I just made.

On Saturday, September 26, the Red Hook-based gallery and artist collective Kidd Yellin, where I am an “artist-in-residence,” hosted a benefit concert for ShowPaper, a free bi-monthly print-only newspaper which lists all-ages music and art events in the tri-state area and features a work of art on each cover.

The event was a collaborative mix of musicians and artists. Shilpa Ray (sans all-male “Happy Hookers”) was backed by friends- including Kendrick Strauch (of the recently dissolved Harlem Shakes which featured my fellow Dalton alum, Lexi Benaim). Jason Trachtenburg played keyboard on two of my songs and Rachel Trachtenburg played drums for Kendrick Strauch, before the the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players‘ own set, which also featured Tina Trachtenburg playing the slide projector. Sarah and Michelle Cagianese opened the concert with pretty songs using vocal and cello harmonies, and Your Nature closed the evening with a hard rockin’ bang!

Artwork was on view by Charlotte Kidd, myself, Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers), Dustin Yellin, and John Gordon Gauld. One hit of the evening was Kidd’s portrait of a former cop turned Elvis impersonator:

‘Scarecrow’ 2007 by Charlotte Kidd

Check out the photos and video of the evening.
The video is part of Flipswitch Films’ Show Capsules series that will lead up to their ShowPaper documentary in the works. Also seen in the video is artist 0H10M1ke doing a “livedraw” during Kendrick’s performance.  He gave me the “livedraw” he did during my set and it’s good!

http://vimeo.com/6833813

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kosloff/sets/72157622478042880/

Last week Teddy Blanks and I played our second show at the always fun, always a crazy time, Bar Nine in Hell’s Kitchen.  Igor took a lot of great pics.  For more, go to his website, Driven by Boredom.