Friday, February 29, 2008

Lovisa Ringborg - (Sweden)



"In my work I am interested in the borders between fantasy and reality.

I have no intention to make a portrait of any specific person; the people in the pictures serve as actors or metaphors for a feeling or a condition.

In the pictures the characters move in a symbolworld that is their own. A world where the borders between child, adult, dream and reality are dissolved."


Visit the website here.



Thursday, February 28, 2008

Bloggerwave: The art of enjoying and making money

If we have a broad perspective everything is art! Making money is an art, and enjoying the process of making money is an art too. In my case, I enjoy creating Blog; If i could find the means of earning via blogging, then my enjoyment would provide me with cash. Is this possible?

It definitely is. I came across a site, Bloggerwave which pays its users to blog. Bloggerwave has a market place where the site enlists various opportunities(according to the advertiser), and you can select an optimum opportunity. You would get paid for each post. The number of opportunities that you can take up depends upon the popularity and quality of your blog. Having a good Pagerank, and an Alexa rank for your blog is an important criteria. Hence , this site provides a good opportunity to Make Money.

At present, according to the rules of this site, you can register at most 5 blogs, but if the quality of your blog is superior then they might bend this rule for you. However , there is no restriction to the number of opportunities that a single blog can take up. This is a good site and I highly recommend this site.

Annotation purpose only, no need to click- bloggerwave





Tuesday, February 26, 2008

HAROLD GRAY: AN APPRECIATION



No one bothers to think too much about Little Orphan Annie anymore. Decades ago, Harold Gray's classic comic strip was analyzed, categorized and handed over to the domain of the archivists and historians.

Yet, judged by today's artistic standards, LOA is fresher, more powerful, and visually stronger than many current graphic novels and underground comix. Gray's epic saga of America during the Depression, World War II and the cold war is downright fashionable:

1. Today, slick artistic skill isn't valued as much as a distinctive personal voice. Gray's art was about as distinctive and personal as you can get. He drew human beings that looked like tree trunks (and what's with those eyeballs??) His art appeared freakish compared with other strips of his day, yet today it seems perfectly at home next to the art of R. Crumb or even Gary Larson's Far Side:



2. Today's readers adore Frank Miller's noir style, with his dark view of human nature and his anti-establishment rhetoric. Gray used similar ingredients (minus the garter belts) to make equally gritty, noir pictures. Note how beautifully Gray depicts Death at the door:



I love the hoodlums in this depression-era train yard:



And here is Gray's equivalent of Sin City, circa 1944:



3. Today's readers favor stories by opinionated writer/artists who spin out personally meaningful sagas. Gray probably invested more of his personal philosophy in his strip than any other comic artist of the 20th century. An endearing combination of Ayn Rand, John Bunyan and Charles Dickens, Gray hardly let a week go by without sermonizing about the virtues of self-reliance or the hypocrisy of society.



He also never stopped banging the drum for his own crackpot version of anti-communism:



Some readers complained bitterly about his politics but Gray would not be deterred. Al Capp, creator of Li'l Abner, recalls that Gray took him aside when Capp was just getting started:

I know your stuff, Capp. You're going to be around a long time. Take my advice and buy a house in the country. Build a wall around it. And get ready to protect yourself. The way things are going, people who earn their living someday are going to have to fight off the bums.
No matter where he is categorized, I will always view Gray as an extremely talented and insightful artist. In the following panel, I love how the word balloons curl around the corner, how the cluster of eavesdropping hoodlums form a parabola, and how two random alley cats occupy center stage:



Another typical Gray panel: a surrealistic discussion between an eight foot mystic and a war profiteer, while (a rather freakish looking) Annie listens:



Gray's work may seem crude at first, but it has many nice and subtle touches. Note how Gray conveys the spinelessness of the two lackeys in the following panel:



Little Orphan Annie is an epic American achievement by a vivid storyteller and a genuine eccentric. It might be a good choice for a modern reader of graphic novels looking to upgrade to something better.



After Gray died in 1968, the strip was continued (sometimes under the name Annie ) by a series of different artists (including the great Leonard Starr) but talent can only go so far to compensate for natural born weirdness.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Rx Gibbs write up

Check out Eric's piece on Rx Gibbs in this week's City Pulse.
"Sometimes the pieces drone on like an extended wordless hymn; other times they build into soaring polyphonies."
And check out Rx Gibbs on Myspace

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

A. Andrew Gonzalez - (USA)



"The Summoning of the Muse"
40 x 56 inches
Acrylic on Panel
1993

Website: http://www.sublimatrix.com/

Stay tuned for...

Releases forthcoming from:

Etxa Aranguren - pseudo-Basque-separatist diy folk.
Zach Lockwood - solo leviathan drone
V/A Swim Club Super Friends - New Year's Bash Bootleg (feat. The Make Out Kings, Fields of Industry and Goro)

Also the release of Fields of Industry's long awaited "Two Dogs, A Television" jointly produced by Cerberus Records and Arts vs Entertainment.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

ONE LOVELY DRAWING, part 17

I love Alexander Calder's depiction of Charles Lindbergh flying solo over the Atlantic Ocean.



Calder made pictures with wire. His lines hovered in mid-air, set free from paper.

Our last lovely drawing was a major construction project, planned and executed by Orson Lowell with all the craftsmanship of a master bricklayer. For contrast, I thought it would be fun to visit the opposite extreme: Calder's simple, joyful line.

You'll find no dense cross hatching or shading here. No buttons, shoe laces or fingernails. But what Calder loses in detail, he gains in universality. This image is truly Homeric; it could symbolize any human being tempting the gods by braving the unknown.

It is often difficult for artists to remember that there is no connection between seriousness and profundity, just as there is no connection between the number of lines in a drawing and the importance of its message. This lovely little image from Calder is a good reminder.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

What's going on

This isn't going to be just a series of bios of our bands, as it appears right now. After awhile these bios will disappear into the archive and be linked to in the side bar to the right (over there --->), kind of like a real webpage. In the meantime, bear with us and pardon our mess, as it were.

Goro

Michigan's four-armed behemoth, Goro, is a tribute to the Mortal Kombat character and to all things awesome. Adam Jaros and Brian Wiers, shirtless and strapped back to back, battle for the microphone to sing their respective lyrics while the band plays metal-influenced, G.G. Allin style rock written by Joel Schrauben - also of Gates McFadden and Fields of Industry. This is sweat-drenched vulgarity that could only have been birthed in a filthy university co-op house.

GMEZB's - mp3

Cathartic Pipe

The duo of Cathartic Pipe is Reverend Doomhammer and Joshua Barton of Fields of Industry. This side project is essentially a blatant infantile spree of any kind of energy music the boys happen to feel up to at the instant they press record. They have covered the territory of ultra abrasive sheets of noise, microphones in dryers, sensual wood-flute scores on themes of arson, irreverent send-ups of Jimi Hendrix derivatives and crude approximations of hip-hop. Their rise would bode ill.

Pork Hock Chain Saw - mp3


Saturday, February 16, 2008

Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble

The Arts Vs Entertainment Ensemble is the namesake creative endeavor of the AvE label. The ensemble's first self-titled release features collages of a year's worth of live, impromptu recordings. The recordings are primarily improvisational, experimental music with a wide variety of instrumentation and a different lineup of participants at each session.

Untitled 1 - mp3


Gates McFadden

Gates McFadden is the solo project of Joel Schrauben of Michigan-based bands Fields of Industry and Bear Mountain Picnic. Schrauben's solo work is diverse and can range from abrasive noise to light electroacoustic compositions. His music is instrumental, often loop-based and largely informed by experimentation with recording technique. In 2008, Gates McFadden's first release from Arts Vs Entertainment, 8 Tracks, showcased a selection of Schrauben's guitar driven work.

Login Please - mp3

Fields of Industry

Fields of Industry is a Michigan band that plays minimal, affecting pop music while also dabbling in ambient, psychedelia, and burnout improvisation. Since 1999, they have performed and recorded songs by vocalist and guitarist Joshua Barton with a revolving lineup of bandmates. Champions of crawling tempos, FoI can vacillate between abysmal melancholy and mountainous blitzes of sound. The band also sneaks in the noisy disorientation of bands like Spacemen 3 and The Jesus and Mary Chain, but remains centered on the staid and pious (or anti-pious) minimalism of major influences like Low and the Velvet Underground.


Fiction Writer (live on WCBN) - mp3

fieldsofindustry.com
Fields of Industry on Last.fm
Fields of Industry on Myspace

    Reverend Doomhammer

    Michigan's Reverend Doomhammer merges noise, synth pop and gore grind to massive, overdriven effect, conjuring a sweltering, slimy world of pink, bubbling toxic sludge and balloon animals where everyone is happy and no one goes hungry because there are plenty of corpses to satiate the masses of undead every mealtime. The Right Reverend is inspired by Wendy Carlos and Gary Numan as much as he is by Wolf Eyes, Carcass, George Romero and H.P. Lovecraft. Fans of abrasive finesse and creepy glee can't go wrong.

    I CAN'T STOP EATING MASHED POTATOES - mp3
    Corpse Conservation Recycle Rangers - mp3

    Friday, February 15, 2008

    Contact

    Email:
    artsvsentertainment@gmail.com

    Want us to hear you? Want us to write about your music? Send it to us.

    Releases

    AVE 001
    Fields of Industry / Two Dogs, A Television
    emusic - iTunes 


    AVE 002
    The Make-Out Kings, Fields of Industry & Goro / Swim Club Super Friends Blowout 2008 : a live bootleg
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 003
    Gates McFadden / Get Out The Tape
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 004
    Gates McFadden / 8 Tracks
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 005
    Reverend Doomhammer / Prismatic Beams of Cosmic Protuberance
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 006
    Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble / Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 007
    Cathartic Pipe / s/t EP
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 008
    Fields of Industry / Dogs EP (re-up of 2005 release)
    Free Download 


    AVE 009
    Fields of Industry / The Night Janitor
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 010
    Goro / Henry Kissinger EP
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 011
    Hospital Garden / Mailbox Demos
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 012
    Long Whisker / Long Live Long Whisker
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 013
    Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble / Has a Keen Cultural Sense
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 014
    Cathartic Pipe / Modern Purgatives
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 015
    Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble / Gig Guides Don't Grow On Trees
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 016
    Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble / Of Chicago
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 017
    Fields of Industry / We're Circled By Nēnē
    Free Download 


    AVE 018
    Save Me From the Gallup Poll / Save Me From The Gallup Poll
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 019
    Save Me From the Gallup Poll / Buried in Screens
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 020
    Fields of Industry / Fields of Industry (web re-up of 2003 release)
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 021
    Guyz Nyte / Smmmrtyme Blooze
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 022
    Gates McFadden / You Can See Russia From Here On A Clear Day
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 023
    Guyz Nyte feat. Oscilabot / Domino's Effect
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 024
    Guyz Nyte / Awesome Blocked
    Last.fm or Free Download 


    AVE 025
    Guyz Nyte / Incensed
    Last.fm or Free Download


    AVE 026
    Save Me From the Gallup Poll + Long Tones / Instant Headache
    Last.fm or Free Download


    AVE 027
    Joshua Barton / Thanks, I Missed You, Too
    Last.fm or Free Download

    AVE 028
    Long Tones / Christ In The New World
    Last.fm or Free Download

    AVE 029
    Save Me From The Gallup Poll / Kawgooshkanick
    Free Download

    AVE 030
    Save Me From The Gallup Poll / Brain Eraser
    Free Download

    AVE 031
    Joshua Barton / Brooklyn, NY 9/5/2009
    Free Download

    AVSE 002
    Hospital Garden / Hospital Garden
    CD Baby / iTunes / emusic

    AVSE 003
    Fields of Industry / Trouble House
    Bandcamp / iTunes