Monday, February 08, 2010

See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Native!!

Havana wild weekend...sold-out my show with "The Golem" at the Rubin Museum of Art on Friday night , special thanks to Tim McHenry and Dawn Eshelman who made it such a wonderful and smooth experience, in one of my favorite places to perform in the world, there are some clips up taken at the event by my pal Colin Faber at both http://www.youtube.com/garylucas and http://www.youtube.com/outfromunderlive, check 'em out...inda house was Colin and his wife, WKCR heavyweight muso-jock Charles Blass, and lovely Brazilian avant-vocalist Mossa Bildner.

Then Saturday went to a screening of "Avatar"...wonderful film...I'll be darned but if it didn't bring a tear or two to my jaundiced occluded eye "looking through crystal spectacles" taking the lenticular longview as it were, old softy that I am, for the first hour or so I involuntarily played "spot the reference" and counted oh at least 173 maybe 174 traces of other films ground up/mixed up in James Cameron's cine-blender/pish-toshterizer and I was bored brothers and I was bored, before eventually succumbing via the protracted retinal assault (scene through the lens of an eye) (X Ray Spex) to the lovely lavish and immaculate visuals on display (and I normally hate CGI) as well as the going-native/gone green/turn blue message being massaged/flogged/rammed home again home again jiggety jig for 2 hours 45, a message I can get behind in a big way...didn't even mind (well only a little) the quotations from the "Titanic" theme song near the end as old master organist JC pulled out all the stops, pressed all our buttons, played us in a masterful Spielbergian manner, I even found Sam Worthington's Mel Gibson impression endearing (a fellow Aussie, must have been easy) as much as I loathe malodorous Mel's (mal y Mel)'s rabid anti-semitic claptrap...damn good flick, I'd see it again...

...and then hung for many hours at an old style Bohemian soiree last night at my friend Denise Gordon's capacious loft, good victuals scintillating conversation, fascinating array of media notables in attendance (including lovely Barbara Epler the editor/publisher of New Directions Books, the late legendary James Laughlin's inprint, a house which boasts one of the greatest backlists in literary history --Joyce, Apollinaire, Djuna Barnes et al--as well as a host of great Latin American and Spanish authors, including the fantastic Roberto Bolano...Barbara tells me they hold the rights to another dozen Bolano ms.', which is terrific news to us Bolano-maniacs, latest out is "Monsieur Pain" which scored a glowing review in the Sunday Times yesterday...

hmmm...spent xmas in London per usual with Caroline and did a powerful spell of work at The Way Studios under the production aegis of my dear friends Gaz Cobain and Brian Dougans (Future Sound of London, Amorphous Androgynous) on a top secret project I am not at liberty to reveal details of at this point on pain of, uh, oh, I dunno, to reveal this now is clearly NG...AA are spotlighted in the latest issue of MOJO--as well they should be!--and you can check out one of our collaborations "Opus of the Black Sun" on the covermount CD...

At The Way studios in London Xmas 2009 with Amorphous Androgynous (Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans)

Click to enlarge

Producer Hal Willner and Arts at St, Ann's Susan Feldman organized a wonderful tribute to original Fugs founding member Tuli Kupferberg at St. Ann's Warehouse in early January who is in need of medical coverage, Tuli is an old friend and I bought a copy from him and his lady friend of the soundtrack of "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" by the fabulous Michel Legrand on the sidewalks of Soho about a year ago, paying tribute were such NYC luminaries as Peter Stampfel, Lenny Kaye, John Zorn, Shilpa Ray and her Happy Hookers, John Kruth, David Amram, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, Phillip Glass, and a slew of other notables...yrs truly performed an original instrumental tribute to the great man which is available for your viewing pleasure here...

Backstage at Czech Republic and friends Benefit for Haiti, Bohemian National Hall NYC 1/29/10 - Martin Palous, Czech UN Ambassador; Eliska Zigova, Czech Consul General; GL; Marcel Sauer, Czech Cultural Center director/organizer of the benefit

Click to enlarge

Have a premiere of my new solo "Cinefantastique" project (playing classic film music from Fellini, Hitchock, Werner Herzog films and more) here at the Gershwin Hotel here tomorrow night at 8pm, which was a Pick in The New Yorker this week...I debuted this at the Jecheon Festival in South Korea last August, you can see and hear clips from it here...

Lastly check out these three great clips from my performance with Najma Akhtar at the WOMAD Festival Las Palmas in the Canary Islands last November, where we played our celebrated "Rishte" album in its entirety before 5000 folks..."Soul Taker"..."Aksar"...and "Rishte"...

more good stuff but--

"I've gotta go now...

gotta go now..."

(fill in the blanks)

--The Kinks, "I Gotta Go Now"


xxLove


Gary

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