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L7 — “Pretend We’re Dead.” A Documentary. . .
L7 documentary
A Documentary by Sarah Price (Blue Hats Creative)
To be published in Punk Globe, April ’17.
Running Time – 1:33 Genre – Documentary
https://youtu.be/D3qFKB78uic TRAILER 127 minutes.
This most famous song title by LZ also informs the title of this Sarah Price-directed (“American Movie,” “The Yes Men Save the World”) documentary.
To think that when I first heard the name “L7,” I thought it stood for a Lagangian Point, that is, a point of space between two large gravitational bodies that is relatively stable; a parking space, if you will.
L7 is a 50s term, meaning a “square” – a kind of person–not a smoke. If you put one of your hand’s thumb and forefinger to form an “L,” and the ones, on the other hand, to make a “7,” put them together– and you’ve got a “square.”
Well, L7 has been called far from square—but it can also mean “odd-“ – and this doco delightfully proves it.
Beginning with a scene in a van where shadowy figures are bouncing up and down and a decidedly urgent voice is screaming, “Just shut up and fuck me, dammit, just shut up and fuck me!”
Ha ha. It was just a ruse. These women are pretty funny!
The film moves to scenes of tour and concert scenes. According to the Guardian UK newspaper, “Pretend We’re Dead” picked out footage from ’85- ’01 over 100 hours of Sparks’s personal assortment from her archives. “We documented ourselves pretty well because we thought no one else would care,” says Sparks. “It will be evocative of an era that doesn’t exist any longer.”
In front of a Peterbilt truck, the band members announce themselves:
“I am Donita Sparks, guitar, vocals. . .Dee Plaka, drums. . .Suzi Gardner, guitar, vocals . . .Jennifer Finch, bass, vocals.”
Then the film explodes into “Fast and Frightening” —
“The film includes the band’s never-before-seen home flicks, performances, talking heads, and meer-poppins.
L7-We hear from one of their biggest fans, Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic (also Foo Fighters and Flipper; director of “L7 – The Beauty Process”)—“They had the riffs, the rhythm—they just rocked!”
Punk doyenne Exene
A L7 concert was such an unpredictable barrage of sound and mayhem, with such primal thrash, that they were first classified as heavy metal. But as time wore on, it was obvious they were nothing like the misogynistic, intolerant or violent heavy metal bands of the day.
Shirley Manson opines about the band in a snippet: “”They were openly, brazenly feminist, and I really responded to that.” Garbage bandmate of producer of L7’s album “Bricks Are Heavy” Butch Vig
and Veruca Salt’s Louise Post, Joan Jett, X’s Exene Cervenka, and others are highlighted in the film. Look at L7’s visit dates here.”
Donita Sparks was born in Chicago, grew up in a suburb — Oak Lawn–made the ‘scene’ in Chicago (at such seminal clubs like O’Banion’s, the Lucky Number and Neo) as a teenager but soon after graduation from high school moved to LA.
L7 co-founder Suzi Gardner (who later became famous for being the first woman to be “tit cast” by Cynthia Plaster Caster), lived in the Silverlake neighborhood where “all the art punks lived.” She had developed a reputation for being a poet and writer (LA Weekly), which pissed her off because she wanted to be known as a ROCKER [emphasis added].
Another Chicago native, Dee Plakas joined L7 in 1987. After running through a number of drummers L7 welcomed Dee to the band in 1987.
Jennifer Finch, even though she played with Courtney Love in S.F. band Sugar Baby Doll/Babylon and with the LA band the Pandoras, was not an very accomplished bass player at the time she met Donita and Suzi, but her connectedness with the LA punk scene impressed the members of the band and so she joined, making up for her lack of technical virtuosity with attitude. She was responsible for taking the band to the next level but departed in 1996.
Courtney Love kept in touch with the band and convinced them to come to Seattle, which was like the difference between night (LA) and day. They were treated like a real rock band, not a novelty–and their performance led to a signing by SubPop, a leading alternative label; and which led to a tour of Europe. “Smell The Magic” their second album followed (1990).
In 1992 they were signed to Warner Brothers/Slash/Elektra. Grunge had become everywhere, thanks largely to the massive success of Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” Bands like Sonic Youth were being played on MTV and underground bands were being featured on “Nightflight.”
Their album, “Bricks Are Heavy” produced by Nivana producer Butch Vig, was a dip in the sea of heavy metal while still on the beach of grunge. It received generally positive reviews and was their best-selling album to date. “Pretend We’re Dead,” written and sung by Donita Sparks, was one of the eleven tracks on the album, and it received significant airplay not only in the US but in many other countries as well.
(Some have noted that the riffs on “Pretend You’re Dead” sound like a speeded-up version of a Suicidal Tendencies song. As far as I can tell the bands are friends, and no offense was taken. A similar charge was levied against Puddle of Mudd’s “She Hates Me,” but that’s another story.)
Around this time, In 1991 L7, along with the music editor of LA Weekly, started Rock 4 Choice, a series of concerts to benefit women’s pro-choice groups. They went on for a decade and provided a venue for artists Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Melissa Etheridge, Siste Double Happiness, Foo Fighters, Hole, Joan Jett, the Offspring, Salt ‘n’ Pepa, Pearl Jam, and many others.
There is footage of L7 in 1991-92 at Smart Studio, Butch Vig’s audio workshop in Madison, Wisconsin, where Butch Fig recorded “Bricks. . . .”
Their European Tour, “Hungry for Stink,” their fourth album did fairly well, especially in the UK where one of their singles from the album, “Andres” made it to #34 on their music charts.They did not make a “stink” at Lollapalooza ’94, where their setting was tame and they were booked in the daytime. not as controversial as their Reading ’92 one, where Donita Spark pulled out a tampon out of herself and tossed it into a crowd, riotous and angry due to an equipment delay.
Most of the time they spent offstage partying and getting to know the other bands– George Clinton, Smashing Pumpkins, The Breeders, Beastie Boys, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
Japan tour. Selling their panties to fans. Concert in London. Warner Bros. dropped them while they played with KISS and Rage Against the Machine.
Frank Zappa once said, “When you go on the road, it makes you crazy.”
Back to where they started: DIY. “All we have is us—us, and a booking agent. So they started their own label: Wax Tadpole, and put out their sixth and final album done in a studio, “Slap-Happy.” In collaboration with Bong Load Records.
LZ was reduced to a trio, as Gail Greenwood, the most recent bassist left the band. before recording it.
Bong Load would have major success with a single “Loser,” by Beck in 2001, but not this one album. Lagging sales were bleak, critics were divided. Eventually, the unsold copies at a distributor went into a landfill.
It was, therefore, no surprise that the band went in hiatus 2001
All in all, besides the ones already mentioned, director Price interviewed CSS, Allison Wolfe (Bratmobile), Exene Cervenka, Lydia Lunch, Joan Jett, 7 Year Bitch, Louise Post (Veruca Salt), the Donnas’ Allison Robertson, and Distillers founder Brody Dalle.
Much more to tell. Just go see it. It was crowdfunded by a Kickstarter campaign.
L7 Pretend You’re Dead Kickstarter Pick
Art As Therapy
Yayoi Kusama (草間 彌生 or 弥生 Kusama Yayoi?, born March 22, 1929) is a Japanese artist and writer. Throughout her career she has worked in a wide variety of media, including painting, collage, soft sculpture, performance art, and environmental installations, most of which exhibit her thematic interest in psychedelic colors, repetition, and pattern. A precursor of the pop art, minimalist and feminist art movements, Kusama influenced her contemporaries such as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and George Segal and exhibited works alongside the likes of them.[1]
In 1957 she moved to the United States, settling down in New York City where she produced a series of paintings influenced by the abstract expressionist movement. Switching to sculpture and installation as her primary media, Kusama became a fixture of the New York avant-garde during the early 1960s where she became associated with the pop art movement. Embracing the rise of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s, Kusama came to public attention when she organized a series of happenings in which naked participants were painted with brightly colored polka dots. Although largely forgotten after departing the New York art scene in the early 1970s, Kusama is now acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, and an important voice of the avant-garde.
Kusama’s work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. Kusama is also a published novelist and poet, and has created notable work in film and fashion design. Major retrospectives of her work have been held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1998, the Whitney Museum in 2012, and Tate Modern in 2012.[2][3][4] In 2006, she received a Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award.[5] In 2008, Christie’s New York sold a work by her for $5.1 million, then a record for a living female artist.[6] In 2015 Artsy named her one of the Top 10 Living Artists of 2015.[7] —
Wikipedia–Yayoi Kusama
Corporations Are People, Too — Poetry by Jerome Sala
Photo of Author. Credit: Turtle Point Presshttp://www.turtlepointpress.com/traveltainted/4-poems/
Jerome Sala’s Corporations Are People, Too
NYQ Books: Join our general mailing list to be informed
when it becomes available. . .
(Anticipated Publication Date: May 5, 2017)
Cover Art: Ferdinand and Imelda City, 1986, oil on canvas, 72 x 48 in.
© The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Brown family, by Roger Brown, American (1941- 1997)
“As is well known, the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution enables a corporation to be considered a person—with many of the rights granted to (human) individuals. But has anyone considered how this person might talk, or, for that matter, write poems? Corporations Are People, Too! is the first to explore such an idea. It begins with thirty “Corporate Sonnets,” many constructed out of the corporate speak we hear and use ourselves every day. Then it goes on to examine how this language becomes part of who we are—from the products we consume, and their meanings, to the ways we think and speculate. The result is something new—both elevated and crass at the same time. The great American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey urged thinkers of his own time to “acknowledge the significance of economic factors in life, rather than evading the issue.” In a witty, satirical and entertaining manner—that employs both traditional and innovative forms—this collection takes up that challenge for today.”
Recommendation
Jerome Sala burns all of the rule books. His poems need to be read out loud as we ditch our cubicles and throw out our tablets. This timely book seems to have been written from the inside out—dissecting advertorials with ready-mades and raging at capitalistic indifference. As the poet himself ponders in one of his sonnets, “Perhaps its stasis urges us to disbelieve.” He is a writer that I want on my side. Thank you, Jerome Sala, for this electric meditation on our frozen world.
—Kostas Anagnopoulos
“Jerome Sala’s Corporations Are People, Too! not only brilliantly skewers Corporate America’s hypocrisy, obfuscation, in- and anti-humanity etc., but does so utilizing poetic forms and strategies so expertly it could be considered two different equally successful books, one an illustration of perfect poetic craft, the other a unique screed exposing in a totally original way the many failings of a commodity-based culture.”
—Michael Lally
About the Author
“Jerome Sala’s books of poetry include cult classics such as Spaz Attack, I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent, The Trip, Raw Deal, Look Slimmer Instantly, Prom Night (a collaboration with artist Tamara Gonzales), and most recently, The Cheapskates. His poetry and criticism have appeared The Best American Poetry series, The Nation, Evergreen Review, Pleiades, Conjunctions, Rolling Stone, The Brooklyn Rail, Journal of Poetics Research and many others. Before moving to New York in the 80s, Sala and his spouse, poet Elaine Equi, did numerous readings together, helping to create Chicago’s lively performance poetry scene. He has worked for many corporations of all kinds as a professional copywriter and has a Ph.D. in American Studies from New York University.”
“Espresso Bongo,” blog by Jerome Sala.
Photo Credit: Turtle Point Press
@book{sala2017corporations,
title={CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE TOO},
author={Sala, J.},
isbn={9781630450434},
url={https://books.google.com/books?id=Se5CMQAACAAJ},
year={2017},
publisher={NYQ BOOKS}
}
“Under These Stars,” by Tony Rodriguez
Business card
ewastecollective.org animation
Justice Ruth Ginzburg on Donald Trump
From CNN–Justice Ginsburg on Donald Trump–
“Washington (CNN)Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s well-known candor was on display in her chambers late Monday, when she declined to retreat from her earlier criticism of Donald Trump and even elaborated on it.
“He is a faker,” she said of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, going point by point, as if presenting a legal brief. “He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego. … How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns? The press seems to be very gentle with him on that.”
“Time for us to move to New Zealand,” Ginsburg told the New York Times’s Adam Liptak, in a joking remark she said she borrowed from her late husband. A Trump presidency, she went on, would be too horrible to contemplate: “I can’t imagine what [the Supreme Court] would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president.”
Ginsburg also told Liptak that the Senate should promptly consider President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to replace her friend Antonin Scalia on the court. “That’s their job,” she said. “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the president stops being president in his last year.”
But that’s not all. She said that Garland “is about as well qualified as any nominee to this court. Super bright and very nice, very easy to deal with. And super prepared. He would be a great colleague.”
To be fair, some — including the Los Angeles Times editorial page — have argued that it would be legitimate for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to call on the Senate to act on the Garland nomination.
Note:
“Donald Trump called Wednesday for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to resign for saying publicly that she feels he is unfit to be President.
“Lashing out, Trump said the 83-year-old justice’s ‘mind is shot.’ ” — New York Times, July 13, 2016
“Justice Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court has embarrassed all by making very dumb political statements about me,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee wrote in an early morning tweet on @realDonaldTrump. ‘Her mind is shot — resign!’ “
From various sources on the Internet.
Hurricane Street, by Ron Kovic – Review by Kirkus
Kirkus Review: Hurricane Street
The author of Born on the Fourth of July (1976) recounts the brief 1974 movement he initiated to change how Veterans Affairs hospitals cared for wounded soldiers.
“Kovic (Around the World in Eight Days, 1984, etc.) returned from the Vietnam War in the early 1970s paralyzed from his chest down. Insomnia, anxiety, depression, bedsores, and lack of sexual function also tormented him. During his stay in VA hospitals located in the Bronx and Long Beach, he observed that the “wards were overcrowded and terribly understaffed”; when bed-ridden soldiers called for help, none came. Kovic began to discuss his situation with other patients and soon realized that the poor treatment he had witnessed was a universal problem that cried out for reform. In the spring of 1973, he organized a group called the Patients’/Workers’ Rights Committee, which was a success among young Vietnam veterans but became the bête noire of older vets and hospital administrators. The group fell apart after Kovic went home to New York; it received new life after he returned to Southern California that fall. At that time, the author created the American Veterans Movement and began looking for ways to publicize the plight of wounded veterans at the national level. His search led him to the idea of occupying California senator Alan Cranston’s office with other AVM members. The sit-in quickly developed into a two-week hunger strike in which veterans demanded a meeting with Donald Johnson, the head of the Veterans Administration. Kovic and his fellow veterans succeeded in making the changes they sought, but the AVM spiraled into chaos afterward, disbanding a few months later after an unsuccessful Independence Day march on Washington. The great strength of this book is that the author never minces words. With devastating candor, he memorializes a short-lived but important movement and the men who made it happen.
“Sobering reflections on past treatment of America’s injured war veterans.”
Review is at: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ron-kovic/hurricane-street/.
Cartooning: The art of–Masterful Marks
Cartooning: “Masterful Marks,” by Monte Beauchamp.
In a first-of-its-kind collection, award-winning illustrators celebrate the lives of the visionary artists who created the world of Cartooning and altered pop culture forever.
Sixteen Graphic Novel Biographies of:
• Walt Disney • Dr. Seuss • Charles Schulz • The Creators of Superman • R. Crumb • Jack Kirby • Winsor McCay • Hergé • Osamu Tezuka • MAD creator, Harvey Kurtzman • Al Hirschfeld • Edward Gorey • Chas Addams • Rodolphe Töpffer • Lynd Ward • Hugh Hefner
The story of cartoons—the multibillion-dollar industry that has affected all corners of our culture, from high to low—is ultimately the story of the visionary icons who pioneered the form.
But no one has told the story of comic art in its own medium—until now.
In Masterful Marks, top illustrators—including Drew Friedman, Nora Krug, Denis Kitchen, and Peter Kuper—reveal how sixteen visionary cartoonists overcame massive financial, political, and personal challenges to create a new form of art that now defines our world.
See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Masterful-Marks/Monte-Beauchamp/9781451649192#sthash.TNrNbNMY.dpuf.