Author: ford

art

Skate culture is one of the most overlooked folk-art traditions, but also one of the most popular; it’s alternately marginalized and heavily commercialized, and has remained one of America’s most significant underground cultural movements for over 30 years.

Later, skaters: Black Cat Skateshop decks the walls with photos spanning the history of local skateboarding in its current exhibit. Pictured: Laura Chonoles’ "Road to Glory."

The current photography exhibition at the Black Cat Skateshop began last month when Andy Foster, the store’s owner, extended an open invitation to the local skating community to share their work. The result is a haphazard mix of photos from around Virginia (stretching from the mid-’70s to the late ’80s) interspersed with new work by younger local skate crews like the Argyle Team (which has also produced and distributed a video of local skaters entitled Oh Smith!).

To those familiar with skating photography, the older work may look familiar: There are plenty of fish-eye shots taken above the rim of concrete bowls and half-pipe ramps. Many of the older photos are more directly sentimental, leftover snapshots from a previous generation of misfits, notably a shot of three helmeted youths, tongues wagging and fingers firmly jammed in their noses, from 1988.

Many of the contemporary shots aim for simple documentation, with street shots of board tricks and obscure local landmarks familiar to local skaters but nearly unrecognizable to someone that hasn’t kick-pushed themselves around town. Several participants try their hand at aesthetic experimentation, with results ranging from clumsy to compelling; the most effective ones manage to combine the deceptively simple grace of skateboarding with the sublime, like Foster’s tiny, ’70s-era portrait of a suburban skater, matted imaginatively at the top of an oversized frame, or a gorgeous pair of LOMO photographs by Riley Duncan, a skater from the Argyle Team. ("LOMO" cameras were made by an Austrian company in the early ’80s; the motto of "Lomography" was "Don’t think, just shoot.")

The photographs fill one wall of the shop; the rest are covered with skateboard designs, including several imaginatively decorated ones from the "Broken Decks" show held at the same time last year. A Hendrix bootleg plays quietly as Foster puts the finishing touches on an iron-on t-shirt. It’s a rainy afternoon and the store is mostly empty, but Andy is cheerful and hospitable. Despite the racks of t-shirts, boards, wheels and skate videos, the place feels more like a living room than a store, and it’s not hard to see why the place has become the center of the local skating subculture (or, for that matter, the subculture’s exhibition space).
 
Although the photography here is largely unprofessional, Foster is hardly ignorant of the art world—he once dropped out of a graduate program in Art Criticism. "I used to argue with all the Modernists there; they just couldn’t understand the appeal of something like this," he says, holding up the finished t-shirt, which now bears a ’60s-era Jack Kirby illustration of The Mighty Thor.

Indeed, skate culture is so interesting and valuable because it provides a vibrant alternative to the established traditions of mass culture, and the photo show at Black Cat is no exception. The work may be of wildly varying quality, but that’s part of the appeal. Anyone looking for austere fine-art photography to go with their wine and cheese will most likely be disappointed, but those looking to discover more about Charlottesville’s skate community will certainly find a fun exhibition and a warm welcome.

music

For those with eclectic tastes in a cosmopolitan hamlet like Charlottesville, it’s sometimes easy to forget just how great Southern music can be, especially when played live. Three solid acts at the Outback Lodge served as a healthy reminder.

Black Twig played first and, despite sharing three members with Blacksburg-based noise-and-folk acts Pelt and Spiral Joy Band, the band was in full traditional mode. On banjo, guitar and washboard, the band played a range of folk and bluegrass standards, revealing an extensive knowledge of the music’s history.

Although they’re known for the long-form drones they’ve explored elsewhere, Black Twig’s secret weapon is the fact that these guys have some serious old-timey chops—accomplished avant-garde musicians that you can find busking for beer money on the Downtown Mall. It’s always nice to see them again in one form or another.

Mr. Baby was next. Megan Huddleston led on vocals and acoustic guitar, with Jesse Fiske and Ferd Lionel Moyse of the Hackensaw Boys on electric guitar and stand-up bass, backed by local personality Philip St. Ours on drums. Each are known as folkies in their own right, but collectively they played something closer to dark country rock.

Huddleston’s material is occasionally brilliant, with standout lyrics like "A stranger asserted his independence by drowning in the Rivanna./ They haven’t found his body yet, so I avert my gaze over every bridge I cross." The softer material suffered from translation, occasionally veering into bluesy entropy.  Thankfully it wasn’t a matter of ability, merely a question of which material is better suited for which style; Baby’s best moments came during the P.J. Harvey-ish uptempo rockers.

Amores perros: Casa de Chihuahua perform a lively set of barn-burners for a scant crowd at the Outback Lodge.

By the time Casa De Chihuahua hit the stage, the crowd was inebriated and totally receptive as the band ripped through energetic folk-country with a fearsome intensity. These recent Brooklyn transplants blazed through a set that was rough, rugged and satisfying.

Zack Orion played guitar and sang in a grizzled yelp, Morgan O’Kane kicked up a storm on the banjo and Nico Ramirez played the washboard, sneering backup vocals through a cigarette. Hackensaw Boy Moyse stayed onstage to fill in on bass.

Though the hour was late and the venue uncrowded, dancing broke out and the energy level was suitably high. The Chihuahuas were gracious to the end, at a point exclaiming "Thanks for listening to that one—you guys are generous!" although no concession was needed; the Chihuahuas’ hearty ruckus was the perfect way to conclude the evening.

Rough riders: Love Tentacle Drip Society proves this town ain’t big enough for its inventive debut record, Some Kind of Cowboy.

cd

I remember distinctly the moment in my adolescence when I decided that rock music was cool.

My peers were all starting bands, so I tried to learn how to play the guitar. As I struggled—to this day, I still only know two chords—I suddenly felt silly for wasting several years in the school concert band. Nirvana, after all, did not have a trumpet player. In my 13-year-old estimation, the guitar was the instrument of coolness; flutes, trombones and kettle drums were for nerds.

If the members of Love Tentacle Drip Society encountered this false dichotomy at any point in their development, they certainly don’t show it. On the contrary, they seem to have embraced both the exuberance of rock and the instrumentation of dorks on their debut album, Some Kind of Cowboy, without the slightest bit of self-consciousness.  Cowboy was recorded locally by Lance Brenner, and the first 50 copies come packaged in an overly large cardboard pony—already a more adventurous start than most local bands could dream of.

And it is an adventurous group of young chaps: The governing body of Charlottesville’s nastiest society consists of Charles Carrier on vibraphones, Jameson Zimmer on banjo and vocals, Sean Zimmer on drums and Nicholas "Max" Dreyer on guitar, but the foursome switches instruments often. Everyone seems to take a turn on keyboards and, during their live show, it’s not uncommon for Carrier to literally leap back and forth from vibraphones to drums between every song. The vocals (another shared duty) typically alternate between lighthearted sincerity and sarcastic falsetto. They have more in common with legendary weirdos like Frank Zappa than one might expect from a band whose members are mostly still in high school.

Though it occasionally resembles a medley of absurd vaudeville acts, Cowboy is quite consistent and coherent, especially considering the disparate moments that it manages to tie together. Take the energetic vibraphone/guitar breakdown of "And Then I Started Thinking About My Sister;" the sensitive pseudo-Appalachia of "Mountain Man;" the bleeping alienation of "Future is Today;" the perverse cocktail-lounge charm of "Too Young to be a Dad;" and the drum-fueled fury of "Tom Baker," their almost-unrecognizable cover of the "Doctor Who" theme.  

The puzzling thing about LTDS is that, despite the silly ideas and juvenile whimsy, there’s also a remarkable amount of quality control and great ear for what actually works, musically. The album wanders amiably through several short songs at a brisk pace, and includes several instrumental rockers and ambient interludes that tie the album together and help to balance out a few of the goofier moments.

Things don’t really fly off the rails until the album’s last few "hidden tracks" (an idea whose time has passed, I think, in the age of the MP3). Even then, the problem is the result of poor sequencing rather than aesthetically questionable content; these four bonus breakdowns would have fit nicely anywhere else on the disc.

The Tentacles appear to be channeling some previously unknown, schizophrenic muse.  Despite rumors of a hiatus while one member goes off to college, I’m sure we’ll hear more from the members of LTDS in one chaotic form or another. For now, I just have to find room on my CD shelf for this giant cardboard pony.

gallery

It’s the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love: Aging dinosaur rock bands lumber onwards, Baby Boomers are patting themselves on the back for having changed the world and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find accurate documents of the late ’60s, much less ones with any level of grace or insight.

Get your mojo workin’: Peter Whitehead’s Tonight Lets All Make Love in London turns an honest (if experimental) eye on sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll in ’60s London.

Peter Whitehead’s Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London is perhaps even more interesting today than when it was released in 1967, precisely because it avoids the wide-eyed wonder that characterizes so much of today’s nostalgia trips. Whitehead strings together an inspired montage of experimental techniques, documentary footage and casual interviews with celebrities and artists; the resulting film is both a bewildering psychedelic tapestry and an intelligent investigation.

The more experimental segments are the film’s most engaging, if also the most dated. Freeze-frames, close-ups and rapid editing combine with an uncharacteristically visceral score by Pink Floyd. It’s tempting to call Whitehead the forefather of the music video, but—like all filmmakers who are credited with that dubious honor—there’s a lot more going on. Beneath the surface of this pop pastiche, there’s actually a great deal of cultural anthropology at work.

Whitehead interviews several fashionable young mods, one of whom claims, "A woman doesn’t have to disguise her sexuality—that’s freedom." Perhaps, but in swinging London, sexism abounds; later in the film, a man from Playboy magazine discusses why London is the ideal place to open a strip club. It’s unclear if Whitehead intended to make a Didion-esque critique of the Hippie Generation, but parts of the film certainly read that way today.

Most subjects appear rather naïve under the camera’s silent gaze. Rolling Stones leader Mick Jagger seems less foolish, but also terribly aloof. Despite talk of "class consciousness," everyone’s biggest concern seems to be how late the pubs stay open. Michael Caine, at least, seems aware of his exalted privilege and has a good sense of humor about it.

One memorable scene involves a Rolling Stones concert. A young woman appears to assault Jagger on stage, and is then violently thrown into the audience; the footage is repeated over and over at various frame rates. The context of the event is muddled at best, but one thing is clear: There’s more happening here than anyone is acknowledging.

Unfortunately, the University of Virginia Art Museum is hardly the ideal place to engage with this film. The sound is near-unintelligible due to the Museum’s thunderous ambience, and the fancy flat-screen TV stretches the picture until everyone’s head looks flattened. Nevertheless, this is the only place in town to see this fascinating film (as well as three other Whitehead flicks, on rotation), so check it out while you can.

gallery

Sadie Benning began making movies at age 15 when her father gave her a Pixelvision camera; she used the cheap, grainy technology to make short personal films. Despite her age, these films are stunning and insightful; this is a child’s game of dress-up that is also a brilliant recycling of film clichés and gender roles.

Chick flicks: Miranda July critiques diva-hood in “The Amateurist,” screening in the “Bad Girls: Videos” installation at the UVA Art Museum.

Her 1992 video, “It Wasn’t Love,” was made in her bedroom and feels like an adolescent art project: Characters (represented by Benning herself, in different outfits) tell the story of a crime spree/road trip to Hollywood shared by a cool older chick and an impressionable accomplice.

But Benning is hardly naïve. Rather, she appears full of confidence. This not a confession, but a performance: When the minimal story reaches its conclusion—“We didn’t make it to Hollywood, or even Detroit; instead, we just pulled into the fried-chicken parking lot and made out”—the story’s resolution is not as important as the way she tells it.

In Miranda July’s 1998 video, “The Amateurist,” an old TV screen repeats grainy images of a half-dressed woman posing lazily, while July watches the picture-within-a-picture and narrates for us, judging the performance with totally arbitrary criteria. The result is bizarrely inscrutable and weirdly funny. 

July always seems cheerful and simple, but her work is always much deeper than it first appears. In contrast to Benning’s adolescent imitation of adults, July is the mastermind who plays dumb.

Watching videos in a gallery is always awkward—they play on a loop, and the audience arrives in the middle. The UVA Art Museum’s new set-up hardly helps; the original sound on these videos is already muddy, but the acoustics in the foyer allow for the slightest cough or shuffle to obscure it completely. Nevertheless, Sadie Benning and Miranda July have done fascinating work that deserves a wider audience and this show is a step in the right direction.