August, 2008

Sound — No Comments
30
Aug 08

Mickey Finn’s, Toledo – Sept 4th

Toledo Bellows presents:

Metal Rouge
(NZ/LA duo)

Ripped Krampus
(Puffy Areolas side project)

Johnny Nevada
(a surpirse?) 

Seeping Vacuum Wheezing
(KBD meets Cornslaw Industries)

Nicholas Ceparski
(Perrysburg Ambience)

Thursday, September 4th, 9pm-ish
Mickey Finn’s, 602 Lagrange, Toledo

Sound — No Comments
28
Aug 08

Tonight at Mickey Finn’s!

Toledo Bellows presents their biggest show yet:

“Noise Master”  John Wiese from Los Angeles
Jason Zeh - cassette tape wizardry
KBD – unstable sounds
Puffy Areolas - Freak out /Freak in

John Wiese from Los Angles is a well-respected name and extremely prolific in the experimental/Noise community. Releasing many albums both as a solo artist and as a member of groups such as Sissy Spacek, and frequently collaborates with:  Sunn O))), Wolf Eyes, Cattle Decapitation, C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core) and Merzbow. He has toured extensively throughout the world, covering Europe, Scandinavia and Australia.

Jason Zeh from Bowling Green, Ohio is also well-respected and known in the experimental/Noise community, has toured the US and has a hand full of releases, One just released “HERACLITUS” on C.I.P records. Zeh‘s sound creating methods are truly unique, With a dozen cassette players and surplus of manipulated/reassembled cassettes, producing massive sound clusters and daringly wavering frequencies.

KBD and Puffy Areolas, two Toledo groups, carving there name into this healthy experimental/noise community, performing often around the midwest, releasing material, very capable of producing a powerful and often unpredictable show.

August 28th, 2008 9pm at Mickey Finn’s Pub

Other — No Comments
25
Aug 08

Freedom of Expression screening

Help us celebrate the return of the TUESDAYS AT THE GISH film series with a screening of Dr. Kembrew McLeod’s (U of Iowa) award winning and thought-provoking documentary. Though the event, like always, is free, we will be collecting donations for The Legion Arts in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Following this summer’s floodings, the building which houses Legion Arts, located a few blocks from Cedar River, was under water from June 11 to June 15. Though the upper levels of the building suffered limited damage, the building’s first floor, staircases, and electrical systems are in need of repair. Legion Arts is a “nonprofit dedicated to the creation, presentation, understanding and impact of contemporary art.” We suggest a $5 donation, but anything you can offer will be appreciated and will be donated in the name of The Culture Club and the BG community to Legion Arts.

About Freedom of Expression: In 1998, university professor Kembrew McLeod (Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa) trademarked the phrase “freedom of expression” — a startling comment on the way that intellectual property law restricts creativity and the expression of ideas. This provocative and amusing documentary explores the battles being waged in courts, classrooms, museums, film studios, and the Internet over control of our cultural commons. Based on McLeod’s award-winning book of the same title, Freedom of Expression® charts the many successful attempts to push back the assault on free expression by overzealous copyright holders. Freedom of Expression® is an essential tool for educators, activists, filmmakers, students, artists, librarians, and more. (http://freedomofexpression.us)

Spread the word.

The entire schedule can be found at: http://battlegroundstates.org/gish

Legion Arts website at: http://legionarts.org

Kembrew McLeod’s website at: http://kembrew.com

Other — No Comments
21
Aug 08

WordPress…

Although I was perfectly happy with the old, in-development colinhelbdotcom, I’ve ‘moved’ over to a WordPress site for it.

I hate the colors so far, but I like the options and malleability.

Research — No Comments
20
Aug 08

Dissertation update

E-mailed the community today. Wrote a nice few paragraphs about the project. Here they are:

Updated outline of the dissertation:
I have streamlined the dissertation quite a bit. As I’ve been told would happen, the first chapter (the film chapter) became the entire dissertation. Because of this, the dissertation is much more focused, specific, and (hopefully) an easy, enjoyable read. 
In essence, the dissertation is now a survey of four films. Focusing on four seemingly unrelated films, I am dissecting the use of narratives of amateur musicians in the “post-punk” 1980s and 1990s, as well as analyzing the interesting situation of producing a film that is critical of the professional media machine (the music or film industries) within and outside of “Hollywood” and the influence of fictional amateurs on “actual” nascent musicians.
In all the included films, I believe the amateur musician is used as an allegory for those culturally and commercially marginalized in regards to popular music based on gender, sexuality, age, talent, hipness, authenticity, and commercial potential. It is my theory that by the 1980s while african-american/black musicians had a position of often problematically assumed authenticity (see Eric Idle’s brilliant THE RUTLES for a comedic example), women, queer, transgendered, and other “outside” musicians were (are) still relegated to a “lesser than” bin in regards to “real” rock and roll. They are the “less professional” amateurs. Though only two of the films forefront gender (THE FABULOUS STAINS and HEDWIG), the other films are not unrelated to gender in regards, at least, to production. ISHTAR uses amateurism as a commentary on the space of performance (as does HEDWIG), age, geography, and talent, possibly as a method for writer/director Elaine May (seasoned professional, former comedic partner of Mike Nichols, and once believed to be the “most powerful” female director in Hollywood) to discuss her own “up hill battle” in Hollywood. The female directed HALF-COCKED (the least well-known film included) uses the backdrop of amateurism in a manner to portray a near-authentic representation of “real” amateurism–in spite of or because of the less-than professional manner of production, portrayal, and distribution.
Though it is theoretically impossible to consume and study the mediation of amateur musicians (at least in a pre-Internet world), one CAN study the presumptions, assumptions, and “representations” of such musicians by studying fictional fabrications. Interestingly enough, though the films are transparently “not real,” they are largely made with the aid of “real” musicians, rely on the “reality” of amateur musicians, can be produced and distributed in a manner more akin to “real rock” rather than “reel film,” and have gone on to inspire “real” musicians (such is the case with members of the Riot Grrl group Bikini Kill’s reliance upon LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THE FABULOUS STAINS in their development of aesthetics and politics).
Two of the films were written by well established women who struggled unsuccessfully (or successfully in another regard) with the “boys club” of Hollywood and created from within the machine of Hollywood only to (possibly as a result of purposeful sabotaged or lack of concern) fail commercially. The other two films were created outside of the mainstream Hollywood machine and achieved relative success in alternative markets (though their “success” is likely commercially far below the other films’ failures.
Here is the current proposed chapter list:

1. Introduction

2. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (1981)

3. Ishtar (1987)


4. Half-Cocked (1995)

5. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)

6. Conclusion

← Older Entries