Steve K - (Writer, Contributor, Scorpio @ TILLAGE)
1. Milt Larsen doing the table cloth trick at Who’s Hoo at the Magic Castle
2. Blood Simple at the Cinefamily screening (part 1, 2) w/ M Emmet Walsh
3. Rob Zabrecky at the Steve Allen Theater
4. Henry Taylor @ Blum and Poe
5. Sister Nancy @ Dublab
6. Dream sequences at the end of Big Love
8. Leon Russell at the El Rey
9. Gigi at the New Beverly
10. Summer Children at the American Cinematheque
11. Rhino Records pop-up store in Westwood
12. The Tree of Life
13. D. Charles Speer dual LP release (Leaving the Commonwealth and Arghiledes) and the video for Le Grand Cochon
14. Rammellzee at Art in the Streets at MoCA
15. Michael Chapman at the Troubadour
16. Sunset Boulevard LA conservancy screening downtown at the Orpheum on its 100th year anniversary
17. Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of Tribe Called Quest
18. R. Stevie Moore at the Satellite
19. Ravi Shankar at Walt Disney Concert Hall (LA Phil )
20. “The Dolphins” by Fred Neil, Vince Martin & John Sebastian footage from ’76 from the Rolling Coconut Revue
21. Spotify coming to the U.S.
22. The Double ‘O’ Groove Of Cornershop by Cornershop
23. Eccentric Soul: The Prix Label comp (check out “Listen Black Brother”)
24. Kurt Vile
25. John Fahey – Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You
26. Drag City reissuing Mickey Newbury
28. The Beardo Hat
29. Watching a guitar being played from the inside
30. Music from Saharan Cellphones Kickstarter project
31. Rediscovery of LDS TV commercials like “Homefront” and “Don’t Be a Lonely Athiest”
Brett Netson - (Built to Spill, Caustic Resin, Brett Netson Band)
1.Wiki leaks
2.Kingdom of Survival (Film) An interdisciplinary documentary combining speculative travelogue and investigative journalism in order to trace possible links between survival-ism, spirituality, art, radical politics, outlaw culture, alternative media and fringe philosophy.
3. WTF w/ Marc Maron (Podcast)
4. Rainbow Pie (A Redneck Memoir) Joe Bageant- (Paperback)
5. Kunstlercast (podcast)
6. Kurt Vile-'Smoke Ring for my Halo'
7. Wolvserpent (formally Pussy Gut) -Boise, Idaho
8. Mournful Congregation-'The Unspoken Hymns'
9. OCCUPY
10. David Lowery-The Palace Guards
(tied w/) Greg Ginn and The Royal We- 'We Are Amused Chat Conversation End'.
Mya Stark - Communication and PR @ CINEFAMILY
1. Cinefamily and Cinespia's premiere of Werner Herzog's 'CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS' at the Natural History Museum
2. Hal Ashby's 'THE LANDLORD' at The Aero Theater with Beau Bridges in person
3. LACMA's 24 hour screening of 'The Clock'
4. Dublab's 'Tonalism' at the Eagle Rock Center for the Arts
5. 'Yellow Magic Orchestra' at the Hollywood Bowl
6. 'Bug Fair' at the Natural History Museum
7. Screening of Naruse's 'WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS' at CINEFAMILY
8. 'THE LAST UNICORN' Pajama Party @ CINEFAMILY
9. Cinefamily's Phenome-con Paranormal Movie weekend
10. 'Call and Response' Art Opening at Mastodon Mesa: 'Young LA Artists' made works responding to photography by Leonard Nimoy.
Sandra Tsing Loh – Sandra is a Freelance writer/performer - Sandra's performances include 'Mother on Fire', 'Sugar Plum Fairy', 'I Worry, Aliens in America', and 'Bad Sex With Bud Kemp', Sandra's books include 'A Year in Van Nuys', 'Aliens in America', 'Depth Takes a Holiday' Essays From Lesser Los Angeles, Sandra's novel - 'If You Lived Here,You’d Be Home By Now', was named by the Los Angeles Times as one of the 100 best fiction books of 1998- “My Father’s Chinese Wives” received a 1997 Pushcart Prize featured in the 1999 Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Sandra is a regular commentator on NPR’s "Morning Edition" and on Ira Glass’ "This American Life." Currently, KPCC (89.3 FM) broadcasts her daily segment 'The Loh Down on Science' and her weekly segment 'The Loh Life'. American Public Media’s "Marketplace" broadcasts her monthly segment 'The Loh Down'. And if that's not enough Sandra is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic Monthly and was a 2006 finalist for the National Magazine Award...Whew!
Top 10 Reasons Sandra Can't Give a Good Top 10 List:
1) OMG I can barely keep up with Facebook--I have fewer friends than anyone I know, and yet can't even keep up with what people did 2 hours ago
2) My desk is a volcano
3) I should take in the recycling
4) I'm distracted by being a bit peckish
5) I should start on my menopause book
6) I need to get to this stack of bills in front of me
7) Every minute on Facebook takes away an hour I should spend on 2-6 Light bulbs need replacing.
8) Too Busy Reading TILLAGE
9) I am eying DVD screeners inexplicably but wondrously sent to me.
10) It is now 5 p.m., the civilized person's cocktail hour, over and out!
Fred Kiko - Projectionist @ UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, Radio Host and DJ @ "Demolisten" KXLU 88.9 fm Los Angeles
Bands of 2011 -
(in alphabetical order)
Einvera
Fancy Space People
400 Blows
Gorgon Zoloft
I.E.
Jon Barba
Manhattan Murder Mystery
NASA Space Universe
Retox
Collin O’Shea – APB Media, Licorice Music, The New Black Records, TILLAGE
2) SLAKE’s Lundi Gras Party @ Bootleg Theater.
3) Eddie Izzard @ The Hollywood Bowl
4) Art in the Streets ‘Members Party’ @ MOCA
5) Davey Rothbart’s “My Heart is an Idiot” @ Bootleg Theater
6) Bill Cunningham New York premiere @ The NuArt
7) The Interlopers by Gary Lennon @ Bootleg Theater
8) Under the Big Black Sun @ MOCA
9) - Richard Hawkins: Third Mind @ the Hammer Museum
10) An Evening with Rob Zabrecky - @ the Steve Allen Theater
Marc Silverman – Alternative Distribution Alliance.
in no particular order.....
Cartagena! Curro Fuentes & the Big Band Cumbia & Descarga Sound of Colombia 1962-72
Pontiak
Solyst
Moon Duo
Charles Bradley
Bombino
March Of The Fools
Tom Waits (Bad as Me)
Mikal Cronin
Sun Araw
Jen Ramos – Vroman’s Bookstore and Book Soup’s Promotional Director
(in no particular order)
1. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
2. Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met
3. Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
4. MOCA’s 30th Anniversary exhibit
5. Alice Bag & band performing at Alice’s Book Soup event
6. George R.R. Martin’s surprise 500+ event at Vroman’s Bookstore
7. TV on the Radio at the Hollywood Bowl
8. Bruise Cruise to the Bahamas
9. Tender Greens’ Pasadena opening, down the street from Vroman’s!
10. WTF w/ Marc Maron (Podcast)
Eric Nakamura - GIANT ROBOT
Ten Things in 2011
This isn’t a Top Ten list like “Best Concert, Best Movie, or Best Toy”. It’s a list that’s as important and there are highlights in them all, but by no means is it a Top Ten of anything. They’re just important as everything else – family, friends, and so on. Maybe I’ll try and turn out a list that’s more like that…
Zen Garage – The year started off great with the Zen Garage art opening just a few days before the new year. Yet, the actual New Year’s Day kicked off with the Oshogatsu program at JANM. It was motor vehicles including the Giant Robot Scion Car I designed but also custom motorcycles and the now vintage David Choe Scion. Thanks to Len Higa and Shinya Kimura for jumping on board. The year began with a GR show in a museum – it’s a great start with you get to do a project with friends, new friends, and a place like JANM. Collaboration can be more fun than doing something alone.
James Jean Art Show – Aside from it being one of the greater or even greatest art shows of the year, it also indelibly marked the night that the earthquake struck Japan. I recall, it was at the after party, the twitter messages were beginning. An 8.9 quake? The thought of a giant quake was one thing, yes there would be lives lost and yes a lot of damage, but less than an hour later, the Tsunami hit the shores and that’s when the things got real, it became internet news for days straight.
Japan Tsunami Benefit – Not long after the Earthquake and Tsunami, we were able to put together a benefit. It’s not easy to set up an event that is truly for someone else, but we were able to do it. Conventional business would say, “after expenses” but we didn’t. Literally 100% of the funds for much of the artwork went to Unicef and we lost our shirts for it. With the help of Intertrend ad and marketing agency who matched up to $10,000, we wrote a hefty check in the amount of $33,000. It’s not about how much, but more about how we were able to rally our artists friends to make a difference. I’m hoping by now, it’s obvious that all the hard work some of you put into making money to buy shit, there’s so much else happening that’s more important than you, your shit or your money.
Zen Garage – The year started off great with the Zen Garage art opening just a few days before the new year. Yet, the actual New Year’s Day kicked off with the Oshogatsu program at JANM. It was motor vehicles including the Giant Robot Scion Car I designed but also custom motorcycles and the now vintage David Choe Scion. Thanks to Len Higa and Shinya Kimura for jumping on board. The year began with a GR show in a museum – it’s a great start with you get to do a project with friends, new friends, and a place like JANM. Collaboration can be more fun than doing something alone.
James Jean Art Show – Aside from it being one of the greater or even greatest art shows of the year, it also indelibly marked the night that the earthquake struck Japan. I recall, it was at the after party, the twitter messages were beginning. An 8.9 quake? The thought of a giant quake was one thing, yes there would be lives lost and yes a lot of damage, but less than an hour later, the Tsunami hit the shores and that’s when the things got real, it became internet news for days straight.
GR2 Benefit – Following the support for Japan, a few months later we did our own. Robots art show. Again an amazing show of support from our close friends everywhere. It gave us another great look at the support GR has from people all around. We forget about that and it’s right in front of us. On a side note: Michelle Borok, close friend, manager, curator and more, gave me a speech. I didn’t want to hear it, but she made me hear it. In a nutshell it went something like, “LISTEN. NO, LISTEN! You have done so much for me, and showed me… NO LISTEN!” I was too touched to hear it all, but she made me. Here’s what the event looked like.
Surrogate Valentine – Trolling around film festivals can be fun. Goh Nakamura starring in a film? Yes he did it and 2011 was a fun year for cinema in Asian America. I didn’t go to that many, but the concept of a micro film, micro distribution, but full scale effort restored the concept of indie film as a business model. It’s just another way of looking at it all. It’s just the start according to Gary Chou who’s pic is posted below. He would know.
LAIFF / HIFF Judging – Judging two film festivals Features section – the big one! The LA Independent and the Hawaii International. Like crime, these don’t pay. But imagine… judging a film can help make it or break it. The bigger the arena, the larger the prizes. In short, it could change a filmmakers life. I’m glad to be part of it and I take it serious since I know it’s value.
New Website – Compared to what we had, our new site is up and running. A few more tweaks here and there and things will be great. As is it, it’s grown from being almost overlooked to now being a small part of the solution to a mostly crappy internet. It’ll grow more. I guarantee that. It gets a small mention since it’s just getting going.
Closing GRSF – After eight years, GRSF closed. The neighborhood changed, our economy changed, and closing it was necessary. I’ve had a lot of folks say it with sadness, but for me, truthfully, I was happy. It was a great milestone. Stores aren’t supposed to be there forever – whether it’s one year or decades long. 6 in NY and 8 in SF. That’s solid and most don’t remember there was 1 art show a month in each of those spaces. 72 + 84 = 156 art shows in NY and SF alone. Add LA and the outside of GR shows, we’re talking well over 225+ art shows. Like the print magazine, it was time to hang it up. Yet… in 2012, keep a left eye out for a print magazine in some form. It’s up to me, I am here and I know how.
Black Ops / MW3 – You’d think video games have nothing to do with anything. For the most part, they don’t. This game actually can teach teamwork. Granted, most of the people who play run around like a spaz with a gun, but as a team, it’s another story. Teamwork does matter. It can change how things work. Without a team, you won’t win games. I wasn’t even counting but realized, we won 25 games in a row. Alone, I couldn’t win 5. This applies elsewhere is the only thing you need to know. The rest of it is just a game.
Skylight Books Top 50 of 2011 UNCUT
1. Just Kids by Patti Smith
2. A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
4. Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle (hardcover)
5. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
6. The Wealth Cure by Hill Harper
7. Secret Stairs by Charles Fleming
8. Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle (paperback)
9. Eisenhower: The White House Years by Jim Newton
10. Bossypants by Tina Fey
11. Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me by Chelsea Handler
12. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
13. Go the Fuck to Sleep by Adam Mansbach
14. The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
15. The Barbecue Bible by Steven Raichlen
16. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
17. Spork-Fed by Jenny Engel and Heather Goldberg
18. Fine on Acting by Howard Fine
19. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
20. Los Angeles Stories by Ry Cooder
21. Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton Oswald
22. Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
23. Slake #2 edited by Laurie Ochoa and Joe Donnelly
24. Save the Cat by Blake Snyder
25. Thank Heaven by Leslie Caron
26. Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
27. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
28. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
29. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
30. Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin
31. Jack Kennedy by Chris Matthews
32. Unlikely Friendships by Jennifer Holland
33. Blue Nights by Joan Didion
34. It Chooses You by Miranda July
35. Daytripper by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon
36. Tinkers by Paul Harding
37. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
38. If You Ask Me by Betty White
39. Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis
40. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
41. Room by Emma Donoghue
42. Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin
43. Challenge For the Actor by Uta Hagen
44. Life by Keith Richards
45. The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow
46. Writing Movies for Fun and Profit by Thomas Lennon and Robert B. Garant
47. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick Dewitt
48. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
49. Look at Me by Jennifer Egan
50. Veganist by Kathy Freston
and, because I just can't resist...
51. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (Hardcover
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