Michael Alan's Dinner For Two

March 31 2012

Michael Alan is a radical all around artist who lets his messy psychedelic juices pour out in all veins.  

His Dinner for two performance consisted of a man and a woman sitting at a little table while being covered in random materials such as paint, glue, paper and anything else excess-able. 

Michael Alan's Dinner for Two was a happening that occurred at his studio in China Town Manhattan.  When arriving, i had to ring his buzzer and then got let in by his escort.  Entering was a cozy scenario: i walked through the kitchen and then into the studio art making area, where there was a group of about 15 people sitting on the floor drawing, watching, and taking photographs while Michael Alan poured paint and made nonsense rambles that echoed off his prerecorded soundtrack of himself that gestalt into messages of being free now, in the moment. Musicians such as Geneva Jacuzzi, Jello Biafra, his mom and dad, and other gem rockstars helped in the collaboration of the soundtrack.

Participation is encouraged with Alan's performative work.  At one point he was going around with a toy Screamer voice changer microphone and asking people their names and when one would say it, the Screamer would repeat it and Alan would let the loop of one's response mold itself repetitively by chance into the repertoire.  Unpretentious but serious to his psychedelically punk rock attitude.  Pure fun is a key factor.  Making his paintings pop out of the wall into the models which are choreographed to the noise of the soundtrack.

Alan's uses his models and the space of the show as a stage that transforms into a breathing drawing that sculpts and alters to the beat of the environment.  There were his drawing and paintings on the walls and after an hour or so of transforming the models, the begin to look like his drawings.

The performances Alan does are potently destructive but also informing the "other side" and going beyond the material world.  When i saw this performance, at one point his sunglasses got completely gessoed to his face and he seemed happy about it, as stickily glue altered the fabrication of his mouth and talk.  Heres a quote by Alan in this regard, "I painted my sun glasses to my face so I couldn't see much. The best way to see the world clear is to blind everything out and start over."

    These Teeth and Lips were something Erik Moore drew then Gave to Alan which he stuck on this guys face:)

Thanx to Erik Moore for the Awesome Photos of this Dinner for Two Performance.  More Of Erik Moore's Photography can be seen at kebaimage.blogspot.com

Smokin' with the Hussy, Live (3/30/12)

Approximately half way through their tour, i got to see the Hussy in Brooklyn at a little punk rock joint in Bushwick called The Acheron, located in a mess of graffitied warehouses, artists studios, galleries and other cheap alternative spaces.

With the hype of NYC and all, I figured this would be an amazing show because most people like to impress when playing in New York from out of town.  However, when i talked to the Hussy's guitarist and singer, he said every time they've played New York things have not gone as smoothly as it goes in the Midwest.  None the less, the Hussy seems to never leave their audience with out loads of tricks and kicks up their high-energy sleeves.

The two piece set consisting of Bobby Hussy and Heather (on drums and vocals) was a super raunchy rock n roll set of short, fast, bluesy psychedelic fuzz punk, each song being at least as catchy as the previous one. After the abruptly precise end of each song happened, which feels like an electric love making noise shock, it left me in a bizarre place with a mixed emotional psyche of having loved so much what i just heard and not wanting it to be over while also itching like a  dope junky to a max for the next tune  (which came before any other notions).

Before their set, Heather told me she hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and that she was pretty tired, but once she got on stage she hustled the lethargy out and did her rock queen duty without appearing symptomatically drained.  This is what is great about the Hussy, they feel like a legend already and are incredibly productive and give it all they got with total optimism.  

I've seen the Hussy perform twice now and both times Bobby has been a sane static lunatic, with fresh guitar riffs that sample all eras and bands of rock n roll history. Then he'll usually throw in a short but dense guitar solo for each song in which he performs magic and his guitar flies all around him while he's playing it as if he's being electrocuted, it bounces off him and back while he hops around with body spasms, pure fuzzy noise in between each note.

The show ended when Bobby jumped off stage while jamming out and started whipping his guitar all around then letting it to the floor. He pulled a little bottle of gasoline out of his back pocket and squirted it all over his guitar while Heather kept the beat going to the feedback and then Bobby lit a match and started his guitar on fire.  The crowd streamed back while the fire spread in towards the wall, which finally got extinguished by someone while the noise came to an end. 

Right away when the guitar was lit on fire i couldn't help but think of Jimi Hendrix.  The amazing thing is that the Hussy knows how to make references without seeming like a rip-off band.  Instead they are purifiers of Rock n Roll's essence.