Steve Albini, Storied Producer and Icon of the Rock Underground, Dies at 61

Steve Albini, an icon of indie rock as both a producer and performer, died on Tuesday, May 7, of a heart attack, staff at his recording studio, Electrical Audio, confirmed to Pitchfork. As well as fronting underground rock lynchpins including Shellac and Big Black, Albini was a legend of the recording studio, though he preferred the term “engineer” to “producer.” He recorded Nirvana’s In Utero, Pixies’ Surfer Rosa, PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me, and countless more classic albums, and remained an outspoken critic of exploitative music industry practices until his final years. Shellac were preparing to tour their first album in a decade, To All Trains, which is scheduled for release next week. Steve Albini was 61 years old.

Leonard Cohen, “Kanye West is not Picasso” from The Flame (2018)

——-

“Kanye West is not Picasso

I am Picasso

Kanye West is not Edison

I am Edison

I am Tesla

Jay-Z is not the Dylan of anything

I am the Dylan of anything

I am the Kanye West of Kanye West

The Kanye West

Of the great bogus shift of bullshit culture

From one boutique to another

I am Tesla

I am his coil

The coil that made electricity soft as a bed

I am the Kanye West Kanye West thinks he is

When he shoves your ass off the stage

I am the real Kanye West

I don’t get around much anymore

I never have

I only come alive after a war

And we have not had it yet.”

–Leonard Cohen, “Kanye West is not Picasso” from The Flame (2018)


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Gregory Crewdson, New Work. "An Eclipse of Moths"

Write up in the NYT about his new work, “An Eclipse of Moths”

“The section of Pittsfield where he staged his pictures is near a General Electric transformer plant that poisoned the environment with PCBs but also employed most of the town. Ms. Hiam, who was born in Pittsfield, said, “My parents worked for GE. Everyone I knew had parents who came here for GE.” Pittsfield was devastated in 1987 by the closing of the factory, which now looms over the landscape like a ruined castle in a European village.”

Kubricks' 2001: One Mans Incredible Odyssey

Awesome blog post on the VFX in 2001 a Space Odyssey.  Great read. 

Kubricks' 2001: One Mans Incredible Odyssey

Doug Trumbull:  "Filming of the 'Dawn of Man' sequence took place entirely on only one stage at the studio. Distant backgrounds for all the action were front-projected eight-by-ten Ektachrome transparencies, using probably the largest front-pro…

Doug Trumbull:  "Filming of the 'Dawn of Man' sequence took place entirely on only one stage at the studio. Distant backgrounds for all the action were front-projected eight-by-ten Ektachrome transparencies, using probably the largest front-projection device ever made, and constructed specially for 2001 by Tom Howard.  The projector consisted of a specially intensified arc source with water-cooled jaws to hold the oversized carbons, special heat-absorbing glass, giant condensing lenses which would occasionally shatter under the intense heat, special eight-by-ten glass plate holders and positioning mounts, an extremely delicate semi-silvered mirror, and a specially built nodal point head so that the camera could pan, tilt, and zoom without fringing of the image."

Lucas Samaras

For more than a decade, each new Polaroid product prompted Samaras to embark on a fresh suite of experiments. Panorama belongs to a series he began in 1982. For each image the artist made several eight-by-ten-inch Polaroids of a single figure. He then cut each print into strips of equal width and reassembled them to create an elongated hybrid image. This simple technique stretches the figure as a fun-house mirror would, yielding the quality of theatrical fantasy that permeates all of Samaras's work.

LS: I think even at a young age I became aware that two kinds of fame were available: One is the kind you get from building this great church; the other is the kind you get from burning it down.

Zeke Berman

Since the late 1970's Zeke Berman has been making singular, studio-based photographs. These works reflect his long standing interest in visual cognition, optics and the intersection between sculpture, photography and drawing. The formal range of his work, and his sculptural use of materials is varried, original and idiosyncratic. 

Some selected works from Zeke Berman, fine art photographer.​

Gregory Crewdson movie

Brief Encounters Trailer

Big fan of his work, would love to track this down to watch.  Can't belive I just found it today.  I feel like I must have been living under a rock.