Coke vs. Pepsi ~ that sort of thing.
Forty years ago Personal Effects released “This Is It,” our first full length lp on Earring Records.” X-Melody was and still is my favorite track on the album. Guitarist, Bob Martin made digital copies of the original half inch, 8 track tapes and he re-mixed the lp along with with three Bonus Tracks from those sessions. You can read Bob’s notes on this project here. “This Is It – Remix 2024” is available to stream today!
The original dimension of the photo above was 1152 x 864 pixels. I enlarged it slightly (with Photoshop’s AI feature) to 1620 pixels wide, my current standard for the photos I post. The photo was taken in 1998 with my Kodak DC210 digital camera. The DC210 was released that year and is a significant model in the evolution of digital photography, one of the first cameras to feature a compact flash card for storage, a 2x optical zoom and a 1-megapixel sensor. My father worked at Kodak and he and I followed the birth of digital photography closely. Here is one of his early spreadsheets. He got me into the Kodak Camera Store on Lake Avenue and I bought this camera when it came out. I’m guessing Shelley took this photo in a moment when she wasn’t playing maracas.
This ad from City Newspaper helps date the band. Margaret Explosion started playing a regular Friday evening Happy Hour at the Bug Jar in late 1997. Twenty-seven years later on Wednesday, November 27 at the Little Theatre Café we celebrate the release of our newest CD, “Field Recordings.”
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Still finding more uses for the unused billboards I got from Dave Mahoney’s father back in the eighties. The front sides make good collage material and the paper is heavy enough to support paint on the blank backside. I projected an image of the cd cover on the wall in our basement and we painted the shapes and lettering, an extra large facsimile of our new cd..
I was looking at Jean Arp when I came up with the design. I started with a few layouts using photos and Peggi pushed me to do something catchier like our earlier cd, “Skyhigh” That one was named after the place Peggi’s only relative, Zimmy, lived with her life partner, Stevie, in the Smoky Mountains and it featured a flat white cloud.
Promoting a show at the Little makes for a noisy crowd. And with no mics on the bass and drums it is hard for the band to rise above the din. The espresso machine and the sound of chairs dragging across the floor are all part of our sound but we don’t do solos and there is a no room for the crowd to solo either.
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“Hello paul,
Could you help us source for the product we need
kindly contact me directly for more detail
Waiting for your timely reply
Best Regards
Dr. Alfred”
I spend a few minutes each morning sifting through the junk email. I add rules for the constant offenders but just swipe to delete most with hardly a glance. Some though, still draw me in. Chris Gratin (below) “stormed onto” some of my works. He looks forward to reading from me.
Subject: Wedding Anniversary Gift
Aloha… I am Chris from Chester Springs, Pennsylvania. have been on the lookout for some artworks lately in regards to I and my wife’s anniversary which is just around the corner. I stormed on to some of your works which I found quite impressive and intriguing. I must admit you’re doing quite an impressive job. You are undoubtedly good at what you do.
With that being said, I would like to purchase some of your as a surprise gift to my wife in honor of our upcoming wedding anniversary. It would be of help if you could send some pictures of your piece of works, with their respective prices and sizes, which are ready for immediate (or close to immediate) sales. My budget for this is within the price range of $1000 to $8000.
I look forward to reading from you in a view to knowing more about your pieces of inventory. As a matter of importance, I would also to know if you accept a check as a means of payment.
Regards. Chris Gartlin
And this text spam looked pretty funny on my watch.
I am still digesting our recent art binge in NYC. One day in Tribeca, one in Chelsea and one at MoMA left me with a hundred new photos in my library. That’s not exactly true. At MoMA I studied and then photographed some of the same paintings from their collection that I’ve photographed before. So some are only sort of new. And now, after studying my photos I find it interesting that I was attracted to the same thing a few years back. I had photographed two of the three pieces above before. The newer photos are better and that is only because I am better equipped to color correct the white walls in PS.
As exciting as the new art in lower Manhattan was (and I felt like we had struck gold there) these three pieces from MoMA stand out. Despite the fact that their create dates span one century, it is striking how similar they are. Less is still more.
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We recently turned to our friend, Rich, for some legal advice. He told us he enjoys talking about the kind of issues we like to put off. He was very helpful, of course, but he is the same individual who coined the phrase, “Often in error, never in doubt.” He told us that a song of his, the instrumental, MX-80 version, had caught on in Russia, probably in TicToc circles, and he was recieving respectable royalties from it.
Peggi and I played with Rich in a band called “Chinaboise” before moving to Rochester at the end of 1974. Rich gave Peggi her first saxophone lessons. Hava Nagila was the first song she learned. We played Self-Conscious Pisser (the lyrics were written about another friend of ours) and I guess I hung onto the sheet music. It belongs in a museum. The Chinaboise, with new members, recorded a 1975 album with SCP on it. Rich Stim and Dave Mahoney left Chinaboise and joined MX-80 Sound. They recorded a version of SCP in 1976 for their “Big Hits” ep. The song was also included in their 1990, all instrumental smash, “Das Love Boat.” And today it is big in Russia.
I wrote a review of Greg Prevost’s fabulous new lp a few weeks back. And at the time I did not want to mention that Greg had reviewed our recent lp. “per la prima.” This wan’t payback. We really love the album, mostly because it appeared to us that Greg had really transformed himself, stepped into another realm. No longer just the former lead singer of the Chesterfield Kings but Greg “Stackhouse” Prevost. Now is the time to reprint Greg’s review of our lp – taken from his Facebook page.
“Really enjoying the latest album ‘per la prima’ by the Margaret Explosion led by Paul Dodd (drums) and Peggi Fournier (soprano sax). I have known Paul since his time as the drummer in New Math back in the late ‘70s; in fact one of the first times I ever appeared in public was with New Math (when I was invited onstage by Gary Trainer and Kevin Patrick) at a Record Archive party circa ‘79. Paul was the drummer at this time so we go WAY back! I met Peggi shortly after this when my former now-defunct band opened for Paul & Peggi’s band, the Hi-Techs at the end of 1980. For those that may not know, the Hi-Techs morphed into Personal Effects who made a number of hugely successful albums and were a staple in the Rochester scene through the years that followed.
Paul and Peggi then re-invented themselves as the Margaret Explosion and are a constant in the Rochester music scene, performing intimate shows at the Little Theater where this album was recorded-LIVE. A perfect NATURAL recording the way albums are supposed to be recorded. Other members appearing on the album are Jack Schaefer (my close friend Bob’s brother, on tenor sax, bass clarinet and guitar), old pal Bob Martin (guitar), Ken Frank (double bass), Pete LaBonne (piano) and the lovely Melissa Davies on cello (thanks to a chance meeting Caroll and I had with Paul and Peggi at Durand Park, Melissa appeared on my latest album). It is nearly impossible to describe the album. If I had to, I’d say surreal, freeform and euphoric. Comparing to other artists would also not do justice since the group is so original, but think on the lines of early Popul Vuh, Lol Coxhill (at times), Ash Ra Temple, Traffic at their most experimental, Miles, Coltrane … Yeah! Hear for yourself! Beautifully mastered and pressed on vinyl.”
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Drop-off for the annual Members Show at RoCo was this past weekend. I was torn between submitting a photo from my “Portals and Planes” show or the abstract above. Interesting that it came down to those two. They are really very similar. Peggi helped me make the decision and the acrylic on paper has been entered.
While we were there we gave Bleu Cease a copy of the new Margaret Explosion cd, “Field Recordings.” Peggi was struck by the color scheme. I took the color out of East Avenue to heighten the matchy matchy.
We were out of town for the opening of “Queering Democracy,” the current show, so we took the opportunity to take in the show. We felt comfortable hanging around because we had parked using the new Flowbird app. You type in your location and the meter starts. It stops charging when gps notes that you left the space. Turns out we never engaged it properly so we parked for free and didn’t get caught.
The double portrait above by Rochester artist, Unique Fair, was my favorite piece. We talked to Bleu again on the way out and I had an opportunity to pass on a comment that Anne Havens wanted me to share with the Director. It is somewhat bothersome to have art shows hinged to secondary concerns, secondary to the visual that is. The wall tags are getting bigger than the artwork.
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With a little bit of editing, looping of intros, abbreviating mid-sections and cutting off the extended, musicianly endings we squeezed seventeen songs onto our new cd,. The Margaret Explosion crowd still buys cds and a few even complained that our last release was only available on vinyl. Our distribution amounts to the record stores in Rochester and the people who come out to hear the band at the Little but they are a reliable market. I prefer streaming and I’m happy to announce that our new release is available on all the streaming services today.
Field Recordings includes 17 improvisations recorded live in stereo at the Little Theatre Café in Rochester New York. Various combinations of the following players are featured. I hope you enjoy it.
Peggi Fournier – soprano sax
Ken Frank – double bass
Melissa Davies – cello
Phil Marshall – guitar
Jack Schaefer – bass clarinet, guitar
Paul Dodd – drums
Forty years ago, on election night 1984, Personal Effects opened for John Cale at Scorgie’s. Ronald Reagan was running for his second term. Americans loved that guy, an old, former movie actor. John Cale behaved as if it was the end of the world. He was drinking a bottle of cognac that Scorgie provided, and he had a TV set on stage with him, tuned to live election night coverage. He bounded on stage, maniacally shouting “Four More Years, Four More Years, Four More Years.” It was sensational. Eight years ago, the night after Election Day, Margaret Explosion played the Little Theatre Café. Another old actor had won the presidency. This time it was like a morgue but I remember it being good musically.
On the A train to JFK we noticed a heavy set man with a big suitcase asking directions with a German accent. Not all the A trains go as far as Howard Beach where we were to pick up the Airtrain and we shared his concern. We decided to get off at the next stop and re-board a later A train. The German fellow did the same. He immediately struck up a conversation with a Jamaican woman and we listened in. She told him she too was going to Howard Beach so we followed her lead.
I took a closer look at the guys’ suitcase. It was one of those bulbous aluminum fortresses on wheels, maybe three feet high, with the Statue of Liberty and American flag printed on it. We told him we were going to JFK as well. He said he had come over on the Queen Mary and had spent a few days in Boston, Washington DC and New York City. He unfolded a paper map and showed us where his hotel was in lower Manhattan. And he traced the route he had walked in the city with his finger. Across town and up to 59th Street where he took the – and here he couldn’t come up with the word, he pinched his fingers together, looked up and moved his hand across the sky. “Tram,” we said in unison.
With delight he told us he had walked over to Trump Tower in midtown. We both groaned but he was beaming. We were impressed by the amount of walking he did and I wondered if he could have possibly walked more than we had. I looked down at his shoes and they were a worn pair of real walking shoes.
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The first stop on our art tour was the inaugural show at Marian Goodman Gallery, a collection of work by artists they represent. The Denzil Forrester “Two Islands, One World” show on Walker Street included a portrait of Lee Perry and funky scenes of music centered island culture. Robert Pokorny’s “Lost in a Dream” showed pop/surreal, mash-ups of Guston’s building blocks. Peter Kim’s reduced palette of simple organic, almost flat forms felt very familiar to me, like something I was fumbling to do years ago. The small oil paintings by Dorian Cohen on Henry Street reminded me of Holly’s paintings in Bloomington. The galleries are spread out here so we wandered and struck some gold before reaching the lowest portion of the lower east side where we had Basque food at Ernesto’s.
Friday was devoted to mining the galleries in Chelsea. On the train I looked to see what was at Hauser Wirth and learned they were closed until Saturday’s opening. But there are two Hauser Wirth’s in Chelsea so our first stop was 18th Street where they were showing new Henry Taylor paintings and prints, a show called “no title.” We fell in love withTaylor’s work at his Whitney show last year and here we were on opening day with his new work.
The four Henry Taylor paintings in the photo above each started with a print from an edition of his drawing of a young boy. Taylor’s paint handling is so full of life. It is luscious and rough and tumble at the same time. I loved how these four variations illustrate his mastery. The show had just been hung and the opening was that evening. One wall of the gallery was lined with Taylor’s etchings, all done in 2024 and each in an addition of 25. I started photographing them all but I stopped at the third. Something happened to me as I studied it. I was delirious. I asked a gallery attendant how much they were. He took our name and number and said it was ours when the show comes down.
In the book store I breezed through the new Chillida book (written by his daughter) and discovered it was full of pictures so we bought that. They gave us another cloth bag, this one egg yolk yellow. It looked so good on Peggi who was wearing all black. I was floating on air when we left but I kept thinking about how loose the purchase offer remained. Did we really buy it? We decided to go back to opening later that night. Maybe even meet the artist.
A block away I dismissed Kibong Rhea’s silvery landscapes as b&w photos printed on canvas but they were so beautiful we stayed in their company. We discovered they weren’t photos at all but multilayered acrylic and polyester fiber paintings, foggy day dreamscapes. A reminder to keep my mind open. I loved the large Carrie Mae Weems photos on canvas at Gladstone, shown with very little light on them, photos of wall panels surrounding construction sites that over time take on the look of abstract expressionist paintings.
We had dinner at an Italian place and returned to Hauser Wirth in time for the opening. We had a glass of champaign and were assured by Jonathan that our transaction was solid. We hung with the work and got into deep conversations about it with total strangers. We left before Henry showed up.
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There are two David Salle shows in Chelsea . He is showing monotypes and paintings of cartoon-like characters at Pace Prints and AI assisted paintings at Gladstone. Salle himself walked into the room as I was photographing his painting above. I’m not particularly fond of his paintings but I really enjoyed his “How to See” book and there is no denying he is a great painter.
According to a New York Times article Salle jokes that he sent a program to art school, teaching it how a painting works by feeding it a balanced diet of his favorites — Arthur Dove for line, Edward Hopper for volume, De Chirico for space, Warhol for color — as well as his own “Pastorals,” before administering a final exam. He effectively reverse engineered David Salle paintings.
Funny thing is in my Photos library my photo (above) has one of those AI “Look up Artwork” icons on it and when I clicked on it it took me to “The Dinosaurs of Avignon” by Martin Davey, a hideous painting that I can only hope was generated with AI. An AI creation misidentified by AI as another AI painting.
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Hardly have time to post down here, looking at all the new buildings and just looking at everything. The skinny black woman in the “RAW” t-shirt, just long enough to serve as a dress. The woman in black hijab garb with clean white sneakers and a pink head scarf. The Mexican with the pompadour, tortoiseshell sun glasses and glitter speckled sweater. The young couple sitting across from us on the F train. He with a “This Is Who You Worship Now” t-shirt and she with the white dress, blond hair, red lipstick, red purse, red phone and gold shoes. All this before we got to the gallery district in Tribeca.
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When Joe Barrett was doing Summer Theatre at University of Rochester he had a part in “Blood Wedding,” the Federico Garcia Lorca play about the big stuff, love, sexuality and violence. The play was in English but I understood very little of it. Years ago we saw a reading of Lorca’s “Poeta en Nueva York” in a bookstore in Madrid. The performer was accompanied by a guitar player and although I understood very little of the Spanish it was memorable because it was intensely dramatic.
Today we saw/heard “Ainadamar,” a dramatization of Lorca’s life and work in flamenco opera form at the Metropolitan. The poet-playwright was assassinated by fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War because of his socialist politics and homosexuality.
I resisted looking down at the translations and let myself get swept away by the modern pageantry. The man who played Franco, or someone like him, sang in a Saeta voice as if he was petitioning the Virgin Mary on Semana Santa. Of Lorca he sang, “He has done more harm with his pen than others with their pistols. “He is a faggot and a communist.”
Lorca, played by a woman, sang “Forgive me Father, even though I have done nothing wrong. Forgive me father for I have sinned. There is no god. Only the bull. There is no god. Only my café.”
Peggi and have been enjoying a mini news fast down here but watching fascism take Lorca out just three days before the election I could not help but think about el payaso, pictured on the streets of Manhattan (above.)
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