31 October 2008

NoLA Rising at Voodoo Fest - October 2008

Last weekend, the city was alive with music once again with Voodoo Festival in full swing. While we could have been out partying with Stone Temple Pilots, we stayed in The Land of Nod under the sanction of our brothers and sisters from NooMoon. We set up a full paint party and even set up temporary headquarters in City Park for those who like to paint and listen to music. Below are some of the photos from Voodoo weekend:

DSCN0392
DSCN0419
DSCN0418
DSCN0415
DSCN0411
DSCN0426
DSCN0409
DSCN0406
DSCN0363
DSCN0375
DSCN0342
DSCN0341
DSCN0324
DSCN0328


CLICK HERE TO SEE A FULL SET OF PHOTOS FROM VOODOO (NOLA RISING PICS)



OR SEE THESE PHOTOS FROM OUR BELOVED DRUNAH

30 October 2008

Prospect EveryOne! - 10/30

Prospect EveryOne! - Tonight - Julia Street



Come kick off the opening weekend of the PROSPECT.1 Biennial with the New Orleans Arts District's PROSPECT.EveryOne Julia Street Block Party this Thursday, October 30th, from 7-10.

This party represents the premier event curated by Shoot the Messenger Productions, a collaborative cooperative of the creative powers of Zack Smith, noted New Orleans photographer and musician, and Miranda Lake, local painter recently named one of the Top Ten Artists in New Orleans by Art Voices Magazine.

The night promises to be a blast as we have gathered some of our favorite people and things from New Orleans for you all to share, enjoy and celebrate.

While there, stop by the Lucky You! Popcorn Stand, get a homemade eyeball cupcake while they last, and pay tribute to the self proclaimed Emperor of the Universe himself, the one and only, Ernie K-Doe!

Our sisters in the Big Easy Rollergirls will be there knockin' bastards down; NoLA Rising will be on the scene to scoop up miscreants and put them in the Fine Art Jail (accommodations will be unpleasant); Watch for the Pussyfooters!; Visit the SUMO ring and try your luck and wrestling; Tikki Rockers to lull you to a firey sleep and much much more of the bizarre (for Julia Street that is).

NoLA Rising will be located at the corner of Camp and Julia and we'll have a art jail where you can pay to have your friends thrown in jail. While there, they will be forced to make art in our hard labor section. Be wary though, if they buy a get out of jail free card, they are immune and can have you thrown in jail without reciprocity. In the end, we promise a good time, lots of laughs and some smokin' hot cops!

See Doug MacCash article in the Times-Picayune

24 October 2008

Paint Party for Peace! - XO Studios

Paint Party for Peace
Saturday, October 25th
Noon until Dark
XO Press Park
(Press St. and Dauphine St.)

United for Peace in New Orleans is organizing a massive art project, speaking out against violence with poetry, music and visual art. We would like to invite all of our friends and supporters to participate in this important event.

The march needs visual artists to donate their talent and create portraits of the victims. These portraits will be carried during the march as a memorial to those who have been lost. After the march the portraits will be displayed in an art show and finally given to the families of the victims.

For all those willing artist, come out October 25th and help us paint signs and clothing for the march. We have 400 articles of clothing that we will paint with memories, poetry and pictures so that, on the day of the march, we may walk with our lost loved ones.

We will have a portrait party October 25th from noon until dark at Press St. and Dauphine (XO Press). The rain date will be October 26th.

Please contact Charles Anderson at (908) 328-7956 with any questions.

FRED RADTKE BUSTED BY NOPD!

We finally have proof that perhaps that the City of New Orleans is coming to its senses.

CALLED A VANDAL BY THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

A CALL TO ACTION ON HUMID CITY

THE END OF THE ROAD FOR THE GREY GHOST BY CITY BUSINESS

NoLA Rising at Voodoo Fest!

Ladies and Gents, Miscreants and Ladies of Ill Repute-

NoLA Rising will be joining our Brothers and Sisters from the NooMoon tribe this weekend at VooDoo Fest. Stop by and see us. We'll be having us some fun and painting on everything we can get ahold of.

To see more about VooDoo and NooMoon, check out the following from our esteemed pirate, Lord David:

New Orleans is, and has always been, a city that calls out to artists of all types. Writers, actors, painters, and especially musicians, come here and are reborn in the image of those who were born here in reality; not by imitation, but by the sense of freedom and self discovery that prevails in such a lush Caribbean climate, steeped in all night drinking establishments, a history of cultures, wide and deep, and a sense that life is for living in the moment at hand.


This makes New Orleans the perfect venue for music, not only at festivals such as Voodoo & Jazz Fest, but also in the dive bars, tiny clubs of Frenchman street and for the street performers of Jackson Square.

Thousands come every year to see & hear their favorite artists, acts too big to play together in smaller arenas, or in one night only situations. Twice a year we are host to a stellar group of performers and luminaries, a seemingly unending parade of talent, going on for days.

In the background of these nationally noticed events is a much smaller phenomenon. A small part of downtown New Orleans, just east of the French Quarter, is known as the Marigny/Bywater. These two communities, joined back to back at the Press Street railroad tracks, are an amazing burgeoning art community.

Having lived in this part of town for almost fifteen years, I suppose I got used to seeing artists on bicycles, carrying their tools and canvases under an arm as they peddle down the streets, musicians carrying instruments on backs and baskets, as they head to & from their gigs, rehearsals or street performances.

This small community has grown dramatically over the last decade, spawning a series of galleries, some in reconditioned buildings, previously long out of use, such as the Candle Factory, a huge warehouse and art/performance space, hidden under the Claiborne Street bridge, and L’Art Noir, created in an old store front on St. Claude Avenue. Then there are the home galleries, like the Side Arm Gallery on St. Roch Avenue, or my own loft gallery, The Skull Club, mere blocks away.

This development has led to the creation of the St. Claude Art District, (www.scadnola.com) an online co-operative of the art spaces and galleries, now garnishing national attention from the likes of Derek Hess & the Andy Warhol Society, as well as international attention created by this Fall’s New Orleans Fringe Festival (www.nofringe.org).

At the same time, local musicians have been plying their trade, supporting local recording studio spaces, from the well known Piety Street studio, home of the latest Andre Williams recording, to one of the newer additions, The Rookery Studio, a digital and multi track tape recording facility hidden deep in the Bywater.

I recently produced a short session at the Rookery for a friend, Stix duh Clown, of My Graveyard Jaw, who was joined by his illustrious pal, Ratty Scurvics, of Ratty Scurvics’ Singularity. I met these two wildly creative guys when they played together in Strekin Hobo, some time ago, when I was bartending at the Hi Ho, another St. Claude institution of outsider music and art. In the years that have followed, they’ve worked together and separately in a slew of projects, ranging from My Graveyard Jaw & Singularity, to Ratty’s musical backup of theater productions, written by him & performed live at the Back Yard Ballroom shows.

This is but the tip of the iceberg, however. The new music coming from this community reaches far & wide in terms of influence, method and instrumentation. From the dreamlike poetic musings of Illusion Fields to the house & dance hall reggae & ska of DJ Proppa bear, there is as far flung an approach to this local music scene as any art community has seen.

Local college radio station WTUL often gives voice to new music, and the local Jazz & Heritage station WWOZ prides itself on promoting local talent. It is still difficult, at the best of times, for New American Bands to get themselves heard.

College radio has a particularly different trend in musical listening tastes because, unlike other genres where the fans grow with the music they enjoy, the college listening market constantly turns over as that particular age group arrives and eventually moves on. This makes for a fascinating array of new interests, but can be very challenging for a new band or artist to establish themselves in.

Local Jazz & Heritage Radio, WWOZ, sticks closer to its roots in blues, jazz, R&B and the music that gave New Orleans its name. While there is a wealth of talent, new & old, in this genre, it’s hardly the place for bands like Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship to create a fan base.

Aside from smaller experimental venues, and playing backup at local galleries, only the internet, with its dizzying compilation of independent talent, offers itself as ongoing fertile ground for these artists. Therein lies the rub.

Until now.

Enter Dan Sheridan, or as we call him in the neighborhood, Dan the Man. I met Dan when he arrived in New Orleans to stay, about the same time that Strekin Hobo was rocking the Hi Ho. In fact, we met at that very club. A long time outsider entrepreneur,

Dan the Man was marketing a thoughtfully freaky brand of clothing, particularly tribal designed screen printed wear, under the name Noomoon. Those who helped out with these endeavors, taking part in an organic growth of neighborly family, became known as the Noomoon Tribe, back in the beginning of the creation of this crew of freaks.

But that was only the beginning.

As Dan would tell it (or at least as he told it to me), so many people from those days assumed that Noomoon Tribe was a band, that one was eventually started, as the promotional machine seemed already in motion. Bringing that momentum from Detroit to New Orleans, Noomoon quickly found a home base, right here in the Marigny, and an ongoing group of willing constituents.

These endeavors grew right along side of the music & art community renaissance that was taking place in these same small neighborhoods. Dan’s Noomoon promotional machine once more came into play.

While music and art fans from around the world know they can come and enjoy the second Saturday of the month gallery openings of the St. Claude Art District, or come to town in mid November for the New Orleans Fringe Festival, it’s only just becoming common knowledge that the Voodoo Music Experience is no longer for name acts only.

This year is the 10th Voodoo Experience Music Ritual, and the 9th for Noomoon. Running it’s own stage, The Land of Nod, Noomoon brings to a huge public audience those underground and outsider musical entities the rest of the world is only just now about to discover.

Located just inside the front gates, aptly placed immediately to the right of the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Noomoon Land of Nod stage provides an alternative reality, with two stages, a variety of bands and performers, fire breathers and dancers, tribal style body piercing and suspension, vendors and costumers all quite a bit different than the usual Voodoo fare, last year even including a voodoo ritual to protect New Orleans from hurricane damage, that although may be a leap of faith, may actually have worked to some degree. You’ll have to decide for yourself.

The point is this: New Orleans is a magic city of new tastes and old, of mixed blood and history, of pirates and politicians, churches and vampires, writers and drinkers, many of whom are all one and the same. It is a spicy gumbo of creativity, where musicians & artists of many types and cultures experiment with their canvases and sounds, their processes, their lives. While that may not be for everybody, it’s an amazing thing to watch.

The 10th annual Voodoo Music Experience and Ritual provides that opportunity.
Noomoon’s 9th annual Land of Nod stage takes it the extra mile, loosing local creative madness in a public forum. While many cities have their own music scene, art venues, culture & style, few challenge New Orleans for sheer volume of these things, and so many talents that challenge the perspective we have come to know and accept.

Enjoy Voodoo this year. Take the walk down to the Land of Nod. Stay a while. Make some new friends, enjoy the music, join the Tribe for an afternoon or an evening or both.

Find something new to explore. Find something new inside yourself.

Who knows, you may find yourself on the Land of Nod stage, too, one day.
It’s a place where anything can, and often does, happen.

Lord David
Pirate & Artist
Skull Club
New Orleans

14 October 2008

Moment of Silence - United for Peace Honors the our Friend, Jessica Hawk

On October 14th, United For Peace will be honoring Jessica Hawk at the weekly Moment of Silence. In her memory, they will be painting shirts that people can wear for the Peace Pilgrimage November 1st. They will start the vigil at 6pm on the corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and South Liberty, we will start painting around 630pm until dark. Join in the community that is the new New Orleans and work to make a difference in the city!

-Rex

06 October 2008

SLIGHTLY ASKEW / NOLA RISING / NEW YORK CITY

SLIGHTLY ASKEW & NOLA RISING

SLIGHTLY Askew and IRT has recently posted pics from some of their paint parties up in New York. See the full set here:

SLIGHLY Askew & NoLA Rising

SLIGHTLYaskew and IRT present NoLA Rising!



NoLA Rising is a post-Katrina arts campaign that focuses on public art, community building and arts therapy in New Orleans. In preparation for the arrival of NoLA Rising in November, SLIGHTLYaskew will be hosting paint parties across New York City. At each paint party, there will be free wood, paint and brushes. We will invite New Yorkers and passersby to paint these pieces of wood with messages of hope for the people of New Orleans.



The signs will be displayed at the NoLA Rising Exhibit which will be open November 21st through the 26th at the infrared theater (IRT) in the West Village. Many of the signs will also be displayed around the city of New York for public enjoyment, and the rest will be given as a gift to the city of New Orleans and its people who are struggling with post traumatic stress disorder and who are returning to and rebuilding their homes but cannot afford artwork.

Join us on Saturdays, and be on the look out for paint parties coming to your neighborhood!

01 October 2008

Jessica Hawk, Memorial Second Line - Saturday October 4th, 2008

JESSICA HAWK

MEMORIAL, SECOND LINE

Photobucket

(Jessica Hawk: R.I.P. 1976-2008)

AND ANTI-CRIME MARCH

Jessica Hawk was murdered in her Bywater home the weekend before August 11. Scientist, teacher, author, landscaper, friend, sister, daughter, aunt, lover—she was loved by and gave to so many.


WHEN: Saturday, Oct. 4th. Second Line at 4 p.m. Memorial speak out—any and all are invited to share—5:30(ish, depending on when we finish parading).


WHERE: Second Line takes off from Schiro’s, corner of Royal, in the Marigny. We parade to Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-in-Law Lounge for the memorial speak out. Free food at the Lounge, cash bar.


DONATIONS: Got to pay the band and more. Leave at or send to Harold’s Plants, 1135 Press St., 70117. Make checks out to “Harold Applewhite.” Write “Jessica” on the memo line.


HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE! THANK YOU!