Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Portrait of Don Van Vliet (After Anton Corbijn)
T. Renner, "Portrait of Don Van Vliet (After Anton Corbijn)," 2010, gouache on paper, 4.25" x 5.5".
This is a portrait of Don Van Vliet that I did shortly after hearing about his death earlier this year.
It's based on a photograph of Don Van Vliet by Anton Corbijn, who has collaborated on a book with Tom Waits.
In a recent interview, Tom Waits had this to say about Don Van Vliet (also known as Captain Beefheart):
I can’t say we were close friends, but he corresponded with a lot of people, and as he got slower and more incapacitated, he was on the phone a lot. And I had asked if I could call him, and I did. And he was very quick, and bright, and original and cultural right up until the end.
It seems as though you channel him a few times on [your new album] Bad as Me, especially in the title track.
Yeah, yeah, well, I hope so. Isn’t that what we all really kind of — we want to enter the culture, we want to enter the bloodstream and be part of the soil, so that when other people are growing they say, “I see that, I see that.” He was such a unique individual. I think he was constantly covering up his tracks. He was very secretive about his process. He was a riddle. And then you have his songs, and you have those to wonder about. I just played “China Pig” for an Australian radio show, and they said, “Pick a bunch of songs that you want to play,” and we put that on and it was really great to hear. That’s when you realize that words are music. Period.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Happy 85th Birthday, Chuck Berry!
Happy 85th Birthday to Chuck Berry!
This photo is of a new statue, dedicated July 29, of Berry, who still lives and performs in St. Louis, located on Delmar Boulevard in University City. Harry Weber, sculptor, created this bronze work.
Chuck Berry's official web site says:
Born in St. Louis on October 18, 1926 Berry had many influences on his life that shaped his musical style. He emulated the smooth vocal clarity of his idol, Nat King Cole, while playing blues songs from bands like Muddy Waters.
Chuck Berry's music has transcended generations. He earns respect to this day because he is truly an entertainer. Berry, also known as "The Father of Rock & Roll", gained success by watching the audience's reaction and playing accordingly, putting his listeners' amusement above all else. For this reason, tunes like "Johnny B. Goode," "Maybellene" and "Memphis" have become anthems to an integrated American youth and popular culture. Berry is a musical icon who established rock and roll as a musical form and brought the worlds of black and white together in song.
Monday, October 17, 2011
X for Kim and Thurston #3
T. Renner, "X for Kim and Thurston #3," 2011, acrylic on paper, 8.5" x 11".
Pitchfork reports:
Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore have separated. They had been married since 1984; they have a 17-year-old daughter, Coco.
A statement from Matador Records says, "Sonic Youth, with both Kim and Thurston involved, will proceed with its South American tour dates in November. Plans beyond that tour are uncertain. The couple has requested respect for their personal privacy and does not wish to issue further comment."
Sunday, October 16, 2011
X for Kim and Thurston #2
Pitchfork reports:
Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore have separated. They had been married since 1984; they have a 17-year-old daughter, Coco.
A statement from Matador Records says, "Sonic Youth, with both Kim and Thurston involved, will proceed with its South American tour dates in November. Plans beyond that tour are uncertain. The couple has requested respect for their personal privacy and does not wish to issue further comment."
Saturday, October 15, 2011
X for Kim and Thurston #1
Pitchfork reports:
Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore have separated. They had been married since 1984; they have a 17-year-old daughter, Coco.
A statement from Matador Records says, "Sonic Youth, with both Kim and Thurston involved, will proceed with its South American tour dates in November. Plans beyond that tour are uncertain. The couple has requested respect for their personal privacy and does not wish to issue further comment."
Friday, October 14, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Morning Glory with Water Drops
T. Renner, "Morning Glory with Water Drops," 2011, digital photograph.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Chicago Calling: Words & Images by Esteban Colon & Tony Renner
Many thanks to Chicago poet Esteban Colon, who wrote poems inspired by four of my photographs and paintings and then created broadsides combining words and image.
According to Chicago Calling's website:
According to Chicago Calling's website:
"The Sixth Annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival is a multi-disciplinary collaboration festival that happens during Chicago Artists Month. During the Sixth Annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival, people in the Chicago area work with people outside of Chicago -— both here in the U.S. and abroad; these collaborations include a range of art forms, such as music, dance, film, literature, and intermedia -— and they are prepared or improvised."
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Blast From the Past: Homage To Mel Cheren
T. Renner, "Homage to Mel Cheren," 2010, acrylic on paper, 4" x 6".
Here's some information about Mel Cheren from the painter Michael Davidson:
Another album cover painting that piqued my curiosity is featured on Archie Shepp’s Fire Music (1965). After inconclusive polling of the “experts” and unanswered industry inquiries, I gave up and bought the damned thing. I discovered that it is a painting by Mel Cheren. The “who?” lead me further, and as I discovered that Cheren continues to paint, but in the 1960s worked for ABC-Paramount and Dunhill Records before starting his own disco label in the 1970s. He now manages a small hotel in Chelsea and continues to work as a gay rights advocate and activist. Cheren is not encoded in the canonical history of art, not even that of a regional, New York history, but like the [Ornette] Coleman's painting [The Art of the Improvisers], created a still-useful sign that is kept alive — owes its freedom of expression — as long as the Shepp record is in production.
And here's Mel Cheren's obitutary from the New York Sun, December 11, 2007:
Mel Cheren, who died Friday at 74, was a founder of West End Records, a spearhead of disco from the mid-1970s.
As a producer for another label, Scepter Records, Cheren was credited by Billboard magazine with inventing the 12-inch single and the purely instrumental b-side, which allowed a DJ to extend a dance song infinitely.
At West End Records, which he co-founded in 1976, Cheren released some of the formative singles of the disco era, including "Hot Shot" by Karen Young and Raw Silk's "Do It To the Music." He also backed a memorable nightclub, the Paradise Garage, where disco dreams played out in the fabulous late 1970s and early 1980s. A 2006 documentary about Cheren's role in the music's early days was titled, "The Godfather of Disco."
All too notoriously, the predominantly gay social scene of early disco burned out in the face of the AIDS epidemic. Cheren became a leader in that cause as well, holding the first fund-raisers and donating the first office space to the Gay Men's Health Crisis in his Chelsea brownstone, a renovated SRO. After GMHC outgrew those quarters, Cheren converted the brownstone into a gay-oriented bed-and-breakfast, the Colonial House Inn.
Born January 21, 1933, in Everett, Mass., and raised in nearby Revere, Cheren got his first job in the record industry at ABC-Paramount Records, where he rose to head of production. Hot acts on the label included Paul Anka and B.B. King, but Cheren left when ABC-Paramount moved to Los Angeles, in 1970. At Scepter, he pioneered long-playing "danceable R&B" formats, and shepherded early disco hits including "Do It 'Til You're Satisfied" by B.T. Express. Scepter folded in 1976, and Cheren and another Scepter executive, Ed Kushins, founded West End Records. The label's first release was a long-playing disco version of an Italian film score title track, "Sessamato," famously used as the first record scratched by GrandMaster Flash. There were other connections to the later hip hop styles, including Taana Gardner's "Heartbeat," a West End hit that has become one of the most sampled tracks.
In 1977, Cheren and his companion, Michael Brody, opened the Paradise Garage, a seminal nightclub on King Street in the West Village in a former parking garage — a ramp led up to the dance floor. Smoke machines and music videos lurked in the corners and one of the most sophisticated sound systems in the city pumped out DJ Larry Levan's selections. As it was a private club and sold no alcohol, the dancing could continue far into the night, sometimes even until noon the next day. The endless throbbing at Paradise Garage is often cited as a precursor to house music and similar modern styles. Despite the onset of AIDS and the "death to disco" or "disco sucks" movement of the early 1980s, the Paradise Garage managed to stay open until 1987. Today it is again a garage.
Cheren first opened his home for GMHC's offices from the organization's founding in 1982, and sponsored its first fund-raiser, at the Paradise Garage. He remained involved, and last January celebrated his 74th birthday as a GMHC benefit. He was also an important benefactor to music industry AIDS charities, including 24 Hours for Life and Lifebeat.
An accomplished painter, Cheren's art was featured on the covers of ten albums, including John Lee Hooker's Urban Blues and Sonny Rollins's East Broadway Run Down. Other paintings, many lit by black lights to bring out the fluorescent paint, lined the halls of his B&B, which remains open.
In 2000, Cheren published a memoir, "My Life and the Paradise Garage:Keep on Dancin': " In the book's prologue, he wrote, "This is a story of my gay generation, the world we built, and the world we lost."
He died of complications of AIDS.
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