Models Die Young is a blog about indie, dub, punk, afro-punk new wave, any music that captures my ear, It's about culture, writing, poetry, modern art, the soul, the mind, or whatever happens to come to mind of least or must importance. It may change it's make up from time to time to reflect my brain's electrical, whatever...
There's a lot going on around me, but for some reason my brain has slowed down. There's tons to do, but not the right thing to do. I seem to be moving further away from writing and becoming more visual. I'm digging the idea of being able to create spantanious images with out any plan, just a few strokes of a pen or marker. These were created on a cumputer in a few minutes. I wasn't trying to create a fully developed image. I wanted to draw just enough to capture a mood.
I heard The Pixies are reunited for a sold out tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary the album Doolittle. Didn't they do this reunion thing already? The first time they reunited was cool. Now I'm feeling a little cynical about it. They existed for a time and place that can't be relived without possibly leaving their fans a little disappointed that the band has changed since Doolittle was released. But the fact that they've sold out says a lot about how strong their pull remains.
It's funny how music is so closely tied to memory. You remember the music that was playing in the background just as much as actual the events of your life. Generation X'ers are aging fast and now it's our turn to look back on the music we grew up on. Nirvana's Bleach got a ton of play on my Walkman. Yes, I said Walkman. I haven't thought of Nirvana in years. I've grown up and moved on musically, but I can still appreciate the energy and originality Nirvana brought. The Pixies and Nirvana were bands that seemed to come along at just the right time. Both were dark, moody, and a little crazy, but more true to life than anything because they spoke to my youthful mind. And though we all need to grow up, sometimes I miss the dark, crazy times spent screaming my lungs out with Francis and not having to think about getting old.
These pictures were taken on a Sunday afternoon walk through Riverwest, which is an old working class part of Milwaukee.
Revision 11-12-09
I realized after I posted this that I didn't make it clear that I am the photographer. I've always loved the idea of taking photos, but have been too shy to engage in taking pictures of people., so I tend to stick things. Riverwest is interesting because it's so run down and yet there are these arty, hipster pockets that leave you thinking it might take off one day.
With the release of remastered albums and entry into the world of music video games via RockBand there's renewed hype about a band that broke up over thirty years ago. The Beatles are all over the radio and TV once again. Back in junior high school they were my favorite band. I don’t remember exactly how I got into their music, but it must have started with listening to oldies on AM radio, and hearing about the British invasion that started in the sixties with their clean cut suites and Mod hair cuts. As a kid I was drawn to them because they did not fit into my world. They were foreign on every level. They were white, English, and before my time. I wasn’t even born when they broke up. Mine was a working class neighborhood that had slowly turned from all white, to mixed, to all black by the time I finished high school. The album "Thriller" came out when I was in the fourth or fifth grade and was all anyone talked about. My fifth grade teacher even tried to teach the dance sequence for the video to the class. Everyone wanted one of those tacky red leather jackets. You know the one I’m talking about. I’m certain I was the only kid, black, white, or blue who didn’t give a shit about Michael Jackson.
Listening to The Beatles was a strange way to rebel against life in the inner city. I lived in a world of corner stores and boarded up houses. Starting with the first grade, like must inner city kids I was bussed to an all white neighborhood to attend elementary school. At Ralph Waldo Emerson racism trickled down from the parents of the white kids whose neighborhood us black kids were shipped to. We were not welcome. It was made known that we needed to adjust to their semi-suburban world.
If you did not speak standard English the white kids had a habit of pointing out your mistakes and letting you know that your way of speaking was substandard. I resented that, and made a point to learn to speak like them and better than them. I must admit I was jealous that I didn't get to walk home for lunch and see my mom in the middle of the day much less see her after school.
Much of my time after school was in fact spent alone in the living room listening to records. I’m old enough to have owned records and I still miss putting the needle to vinyl and my ear the speakers to catch the warm crackles and pops, the stray guitar licks and coughs. I felt like I was the only one in the world who heard all that. Just as I was the only black kid in my classes. Music is tied to memory and all of my memories of the Beatles are tied to memories of time spent alone trying to figure out the lyrics to “I am the Walrus.”
I sold all of Beatles albums when I reached high school and discovered punk and alternative. I outgrew their over produced sound. "The White album," "Rubber Soul," "Abbey Road" and "Revolver" among others were happily turned over to a used record store for cash. Years later I bought "Revolver" on CD just for the sake of nostalgia. It wasn't the same. A large part of the process of listening to the music was handling the records, moving the needle back and forth, examining the cover art and flipping the cover back to front trying to find something new. That's when I regretted selling those records.
The line at the bottom says: They feed off of each other's insanity. It's a work in progress about the nature of cults and their leaders.
Here's two drawings of a strange piece of clay I found in the scrap bin at MIAD. I started drawing late, but always wanted to be one of the cool kids who could draw anything.
Invasion 2008 from Bringing The War Home: House Beautiful, new series 2004-08, photomontage as o-print 30x40"
I often feel that I'm living in a land of make believe where my job and my easy access to excess is a fantasy superimposed on the poverty and war of the real world. I found out I'm not alone. Martha Rosler started making photomontages in the sixties as a way to express her political and anti-war sentiments. Her original plan was to be an abstract expressionist painter. When pop art came on the scene she found the use of everyday images from advertising and pop culture better suited her perception of the world.
In an interview with WUWM's Lake Effect she talked about how the juxtaposition of images in photomontages reflected the strange, disconnectedness I have often felt living in relative comfort in the US, surrounded by advertisements and reality TV while watching our soldiers and our enemies kill each other in Iraq and Afghanistan from a distance. "We have mentally constructed a here and a there. Over there is chaos, hell, blood and death...It's one world."
The feeling of being disconnected is often just below the surface. Rosler's photomontages bring that feeling to the surface and help us to remember that the world out there is just as real as here.
Now until October 4th Rosler's photomontages titled Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful will be part of an exhibit called Jump Cut Pop at the Haggerty Museum
Through a project called Alpha Sessions native Darren Cole is creating a record of what's happening in Milwaukee's corner of Hip Hop and presenting it to the world via video. He presents Mcs more as artists than "rappers." Milwaukee Hip Hop is a million miles away from corporate rap. Cole's videos are shot on the street, in the laundromat, at the grocery store. There's no glamor, no money. These guys are a little scary looking. But this is what you get when you leave the ivory tower and come down to street level. Cole's love of Hip Hop bleeds into his love of vinyl, which he shares in a documentary film shot around Milwaukee. I hope to see more from Darren Cole.
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