Josh's Polyatom II : Barbarian World Mix

This mixtape was created for you by Mr. Josh Cooley ... the monumental 2nd installment in his Polyatom series ... The adventure continues in this rollcoaster ride of a mix, dropping us into an ever-shifting menagerie of madness, masks, miraculous mistakes and marvelous maniacs! who could want more?! once again, thank you Josh!

dive in right HERE!

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Oh I wish I could say that now that the Moss Rock Festival is over I can now just lay down my brushes and hibernate in my bed for a full month ... but I CAN'T!!! haha ... no ... to be honest, I'm actually pretty excited about the pieces that I'm working on for both my December Bottletree show and my "water closet installation" at Barehands Gallery ... both will involve me having a bit more fun and experimenting this time ... seems like I can't get enough of that lately...

Speaking of Moss Rock, I did okay ... it just felt a wee bit cramped this year cuz I'm used to having much more room at Magic City (yes, I've been spoiled!) and I didn't know my neighboring artists this time either ... so, yeah it felt kind of weird and claustrophobic ... what helped immensely was seeing my friends and talking to them ... I hope I didn't seem like too much of a grumpy, complainy old man to them! haha ... it was a pretty moody festival for me, overall ...

I've also rediscovered the pleasures of my record player again, since I finally cleaned up the back room, suddenly making my floor-lined vinyl collection visible! Ah, the beauty of cheap and scratchy thriftstore treasures!

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video-wise, I found this new one by Jarvis Cocker (of Pulp fame) ... I dunno ... it makes me laugh in a sort of muppet humor way! Plus, he may be my new fashion icon soon ... who knows! haha:

and lastly, the much-loved Grizzly Bear have a beautifully strange clay-filled & dream-like video for their song "Ready Able" ... (once again, the screen gets all chopped-off, so to view the full picture, just click the video) enjoy:

Totally Random Mix 2

This mix tape will be perfect for:

A. turning new leaves

B. looking back on the past, happily or sadly

C. driving aimlessly

D. doing "spring cleaning" in the Fall

E. making conscious changes

you can download it HERE.

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Ah November ... the start of the Celtic year ... a time when the veil between this world and that is very thin and spirits glide back & forth between the two ...

I went crazy and totally cleaned up the outside of the house the day after Halloween (which was pretty fun: I went to Bottletree and Philip Griffith's as Where's Waldo this time) ... I also completely cleaned my room, too ... it feels like I cleaned the inside of my head a bit in doing so! I also made a fire in the back yard and thought about a lot of things I would like to do in the future and things about myself that I'd like to change ...

I think it's funny how this year everything was so lined up date-wise: Halloween was on a Saturday ... the time changed Sunday ... Day Of The Dead fell on a full moon (which was a Monday!) and this year Peter and I's birthday will fall on a Tuesday (day we were born) ... also, both Xmas and New Year's will get 3 day weekends cuz they fall on Fridays ... wow

Day Of The Dead at Barehands Gallery was really fun, too as usual ... I took a few photos, which are down below ...

The Moss Rock art festival is this weekend (Nov. 7th & 8th) and I'll be showing new work at that ... here's their site in case you wanna look at it ... my tent number will be 120

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in video news, Charlie Smith turned me on to this great band from California called Girls, who released their debut album a couple of weeks ago ... I found two different versions of the video for their single "Lust For Life" (no, it's not an Iggy Pop cover) ... the 1st one's clean and the 2nd one ... well, it's pretty dirty:

(sorry it gets all "chopped off" ... it looks better if you click the video and go to the site)

speaking of Charlie, she also sent me a great video of a live Jonathan Richman performance she shot where he stops playing guitar and happily dances around like a some sort of holy man in a musical trance ... very inspiring! thanks, Charlie!

Songs To Raise The Dead Mix

This mixtape will be perfect for:

A. getting ready for Halloween

B. donning a costume

C. lighting jack-o-lanterns

D. haunting a house

E. sitting in a cemetery at night

it lies RIGHT HERE, if you dare to disturb it!

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I had a crazy great weekend, travelling down to Mobile with Chris Lawson to not only visit my parents, but to surprise Elise by showing up at her epic "product icons" themed Halloween party! Chris went as Mr. Clean and I was Orville Reddenbacker ... there's a photo of us somewhere down there ...

The night before the party happened, we went to Dauphin Island at night and it was ultra surreal how we had planned on walking on the beach and there really wasn't any beach left to walk on! There was like 2 inches of water on the street we drove down and the waves were rushing up and crashing down under all the houses on poles ... it was really apocalyptic feeling ...

The next day my mom was working to get my grade school, Little Flower's 75th anniversary ready, so we dropped by there ... that was pretty surreal, too ... in a totally different way ... I guess the funniest thing to me is that it smelled the same as i remember ... haha ... mostly like those big pink erasers ... the smell of friction, i guess ...weird

Then we went to the old neighborhood where I grew up in Theodore, and that was strangely undead feeling and slightly haunted ... everything seemed like a kind of decrepit version of what i remember, yet it all pretty much looked the same ... it all fit in nicely with Halloween looming around the corner!

That night we showed up at the Halloween party, which was tons of fun ... Elise (dressed as the Bacardi bat!) was nice and shocked when we arrived! Her husband, Marc was Captain Morgan! Also present was the St. Pauli girl and Samuel Adams, Ronald McDonald, the Shoney's Big Boy, the Land-O-Lakes Indian girl, the Trojan man, Uma and Travolta from "Pulp Fiction", two separate Wendys and many more! There were games, "destiny balloons", dancing and lots of mindless karaoke!

The next day, after Chris and I made the trek back to Birmingham, I went to Alley's pumpkin carving / chili party which was also really fun ... there is photo-evidence from that as well...

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In Fred & Daily news, Peter and I put out a special spooky Halloween EP called "Mask Cemetery" on End Up Records that you can download for FREE!!!

just click the cover below:

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Lastly, in video news, Fever Ray did an amazing cover of Nick Cave's "Stranger Than Kindness" and made a creepy ass video to go along with it! ENJOY!!!

Grey Cloud Interludes Mix

This mixtape will be perfect for:

A. staring into space

B. wearing pajamas all day long

C. reveries

D. waiting for Halloween

E. walking or driving or riding on a chilly day

HERE it is for your rather ambient and slightly surreal pleasure.

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Halloween approaches ... slowly, but surely! I decorated the other day, evidence of which can be viewed in the photos below ... It rained and stayed grey here for a good 2 weeks and for the past couple of days it's been rather chilly ... for once, we're actually getting a true Autumn here in the South! hurrah!!!

I finally finished a portrait that Alley Bulka commissioned me to do of her dear mother, who passed away recently ... she bought it yesterday and told me that it "looks just like her" ... here is a detail from it (the chin looks a little dirty in this photo ... i've since "cleaned" that up ... haha) :

And that "featured artist" article on Spencer Shoults, in which I did the video documentary for Pavo Magazine came out recently ... you can view it RIGHT HERE.

I don't have much else to say except that I'm working on paintings for the upcoming Moss Rock art festival now and not much else!

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One other thing ... yesterday on Facebook, my friend David left this as his "status update":

David Phipps cringes when someone uses the word "human" as a noun.

to which I quoted Morrissey in my reply:

as opposed to "i am human and i need to be loved"

He then responded:

Correct. It can be used as a pronoun, like Morrissey via Paul in the famous quote above. ("human" modifying the subject "I") However, if Morrissey were to have placed an "a" in front of this pronoun, then he would have turned it into a noun and I would be crying in my soup. Now, if he were to have preceded "human" with an "a" and followed it with the noun "being", then he would have made it an adjective and would be correct in doing so. If he had simply stated, "I am a self-absorbed, complaining, son-of-an effeminate window dresser who sings through his nose.", then he would also be right and correct.

I thought it was funny how lengthy this retort was and wrote:

i like imagining you saying this last bit in William S. Burroughs' voice! haha

Now, if you've never heard William S. Burroughs read before, his voice is sort of nasal and pinched-sounding ... here's an example of it (and how surreally perverse his mind worked!):

Aaanywaaaay, I actually recorded myself reading the retort, imitating Burroughs ... it's right HERE if you wanna listen!

Hayley's Windows Rolled Down Mix

This mixtape was created by the wonderfully lovely Hayley Grimes. She and her man, David Brown have quite an awesome clothing "store"on Etsy called Mayfield Vintage ... click HERE so you can start yer early Xmas shopping!

I've crowned this mix number one for danceability, but (as the title suggests) it would also make a great road trip mix, played ultra loud with the wind slapping your hair around and the landscape rapidly changing as you bop yer head this way and that ... then, park the car on the side of the road and just dance dance dance! thanks, Hayley!

You can thoroughly enjoy this mix RIGHT HERE.

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I don't have much too say at all about this past week except that I'm really very glad that I got all of those commissions out of the way and I can now seriously start working on stuff for the Moss Rock Festival, which will be (at the Moss Rock Preserve) November 7th and 8th ...

I also wanna say that I do indeed miss softball and all of my fellow Bearons ... 5 whole months till the Spring season! yikes! I did hang out with Wes at Magic City Wholesale for a crazed nite of Balderdash and cards ... and that was terrific fun ... but aside from that, I only really "see" my team mates as words and photos on Facebook ... not quite the same, really

oh yeah ... another thing (that sort of felt like a commission) I got done was a sort of video documentary I shot and edited for my friend Spencer Shoults ... Pavo magazine are doing a "feature artist" article on him sometime this month and they wanted the video to accompany that ... HERE it is, in case yer curious.

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In other "video news" ... haha ... I collected a bunch of great dreamlike or dream-based videos this time around ... the last one (Camera Obscura's "Sweetest Thing") makes me laugh because she's singing so heart-felt and sincerely while dressed like that! You'll see ... Enjoy:

Sudden Chill Mix

This mixtape will be perfect for:

A. not wanting to get out of bed because it's too chilly

B. celebrating Autumn with a thick sweater

C. driving around with yer arm out the window

D. sipping hot tea or coffee

E. lounging around in a robe and slippers

HERE is the mix, in all of it's nippy glory.

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This week was a bit of a crazy week, full of art shows, openings and music ... First of all there was the Log Lady (Twin Peaks) art show at Bottletree ... there was a ton of great Twin Peaks themed art (view some of the works way down below), along with plenty of donuts, cherry pie and damned fine coffee ... Elise made some log lady necklaces and Rachel Gainer made a puffy cloth log that actually spoke when you squeezed it! I'm happy to say that all three of my Twin Peaks paintings sold! the "Bob" one even sold to a metal band called Weedeater, who played Bottletree the nite before ... photos of the paintings are below:

Friday nite was John Fields and Pat Snow's art opening at the Bare Hands gallery ... it was also pretty awesome ... John used his friends as subject matter for his paintings ... below, he poses with the portrait he did of me:

After that opening, Walker played a show at Bottletree with his friend Isidro, and i was pretty amazed at how much he's improved as a musician and singer...

The next day & nite were very busy for me because I took part in a one-night-only art show put on by the Birmingham Art Collective ... each time the show takes place in a different area, and this time it took place on the 3rd story of an old building in Woodlawn ... it was crazy (and exhausting!) carrying all of my stuff up 50 stairs every time! There was also some stupid drama about another artist getting her panties in a wad because I'd been told to set up where her jellyfish thing-a-ma-jig was supposed to be hanging, so I had to completely re-set my stuff up ... argh! However, it all ended up turning out really great and I not only got to hang out with my friend Dustin, but Peter showed up too with some wine and I even saw Chris Lawson and sold a good number of paintings ... so ... yay!

Lastly, on Sunday nite I went to see Dan Deacon at Bottletree and his show was absolutely stunning and so much fun ... there was lots of group participation and dancing and just pure warmth and excitement, even though outside it was cold and pouring down rain ... I included photos fom that way down below!

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so I've been obsessing over some bands, lately ... and, even though Deerhunter's album "Microcastle" came out around a year ago, it seems that, because of this sudden Fall weather, I CANNOT stop listening to it! In that way, it is a very wonderful experience from start to finish ... anyway, in case you love Deerhunter too, or would enjoy learning more about them, I found a live interview and performance of their song "Little Kids" ... here are those:

This weather is also causing me to obsess over the music of Fever Ray (she's the female half of the Swedish band, The Knife) ... Her 1st album came out this year and is pretty phenomenal ... Her videos are particularly enticing (I included the creepy video to "Seven" a couple of posts back) ... anyway, dig these ... they're all dark, brooding and perfect for this time of year:

Lastly, I found this great live performance of Grizzly Bear's "I Live With You" in a mausoleum from the show "Cemetery Gates" ... it not only sounds immaculate, but the film work is equally great:

Josh's Polyatom Part 1: Babyscape Mix

This mixtape was created by my extraordinary friend, the ever-talented Josh Cooley, who put a world of time and energy into every nuance of it's conception ... I find it truly an adventure of a listening experience ... thank you, Josh!

the adventure starts HERE.

and here's something else for you to enjoy: