What is revolution? In the words of Malcolm X, "Revolution is bloody, revolution is hostile, revolution knows no compromise, revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way." In the hands of artists, revolution represents all of that and much more. So much more, in fact that any attempt to define it based on its usage would be contradictory at best. Better then, to let those artists speak for themselves.

That seems to be the motivation behind a new art project that manifests itself most tangibly as a two-CD set titled Music for a Revolution. It was compiled by UK artist Alan Dunn over the course of four years. It's an ambitious project that found the artist creating endless playlists around the term "revolution," eventually hitting upon this 69-track collection presented in an artfully rendered package in an edition of 1,000 given away to all who ask.

The most famous songs to include the term "revolution" are not here, but each is cited as inspiration. The first, of course, is the Beatles' "Revolution." Dunn writes on the project's web site
that the sound collage created by John Lennon and Yoko Ono that became the separate track "Revolution 9" was an antecedent for his project. "What emerged from that session, an 8.22 collage we now know as 'Revolution 9,' laid the foundations for this collection exploring artists’ uses of the term."

Derek Horton's liner notes also cite the "tacit influence" of Gil Scott Heron, whose "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" looms large over the project, and Horton's notes, which begin, "The revolution will not be digitised." He's wrong, of course. The revolution has been digitized, as anyone moved to action by a YouTube video or an MP3 clip of a rousing speech can attest (or, of course, heard this disc, which comes at the waning moments when music can be both digitized and revolve, as hard media gives way to soft). Horton's own notes feel contradictory. The Malcolm X quote above comes from the notes, as does this: "Whoever heard of a revolution where they lock arms singing ‘We Shall Overcome’? You don’t do any singing, you’re too busy swinging." "The revolution will not have a soundtrack," Horton writes. "There will be music but (quoting Jim Carroll) "just because there is music piped into the most false of revolutions."

Isn't this very document a soundtrack? Yes and no, and that equivocating means that perhaps Horton's sentiments aren't contradictory at all. While there is plenty of music in this collection based on the idea of revolution, it is the spoken-word material that hits hardest here. Perhaps that's because those snippets are drawn from in-the-moment events, where the fire and passion and rage of revolution is visceral. The music, in contrast, is thought out, less organic, the term "revolution" used as shorthand to evoke an emotion or idea or thought.

"Works of historical importance were collaged and sequenced with newly invited compositions, blind calls for submissions, spoken word, student pieces, anonymous works, YouTube snippets and existing tracks," Dunn writes. The upshot is that most will have heard of few of these artists before spinning the disc. Robert Pollard from Guided by Voices is the biggest name here (for U.S. audiences, anyway), with the track "Headache Revolution" from his band Boston Spaceships. Tracks from Chumbawumba and Paul Revere and the Raiders also make an appearance.

The rest, then, is new to most, but good. Dunn has done an exceptional job compiling and sequencing these tracks. It helps that many are short snippets; it's hard to be bored by something that changes direction every 30 seconds or so. At the end of its more than two-hour runtime, the idea of fomenting revolution is not the first thing that comes to mind; fatigue inspired by the overuse of the term is a more likely reaction. But as for Dunn's stated goal of exploring artists' use of the term, he succeeds. The listener can't help but grasp how fluid and elastic the word is, and have the way they think about it enhanced for the effort.

Labels: art, music

This week's New Yorker cover is causing a stir -- justifiably so -- because of the way it was created. Artist Jorge Columbo has been creating streetscapes of New York with an iPhone app, Brushes. The results are pleasingly impressionistic and surprisingly detailed at the same time.

I first heard of Columbo back in April when his work was featured at the great art site 20x200, where prints of four of his iPhone sketches are for sale (if you're interested, hurry: they're going fast). I passed on the offerings there, but would pick up others in the series that are displayed on his web site should they ever go on sale.

In the meantime, you can watch this fascinating video that shows the many steps needed to create the New Yorker cover piece:



Even better news: The New Yorker site reports that it will now feature a new Columbo drawing each week.

Labels: art, magazines

Suddenly, the $12.50 Robert Pollard charges for his EAT collections of collage art and verse seem positively bargain-like. A show of Pollard's collages opened last week at Studio Dante in New York, a gallery owned by "Sopranos" star Michael Imperioli. The show, "Do the Collage," has been a hit, and several of the pieces already have been sold. They average between $1,500 and $6,000. There are 93 in the collection, with about half framed and half not. If Pollard sells all of them, he'd be looking at well over $100,000. Not bad for a pursuit that most of us gave up in elementary school.

More power to him, of course. He had been selling things off in drips and drabs on eBay, drawing prices similar to those seen here. At least everyone gets a chance to see these in person, and he gets some notice as an artist.

He's unashamed about selling the work, even though some of the pieces were used on record sleeves and thus are likely seen as collective property of GBV nation. "Why should I not make money on that? It's my art," he told me in a 2006 interview. "Some people think, 'Why are you selling this stuff on eBay; are you desperate or trying to gouge the fans?' No, I'm not, because it's my art, and artists sell their stuff, don't they?"

There are things to be learned from the collection. The cover of the forthcoming Fantagraphics book of Pollard's collages, Town of Mirrors, is among the images, as is the cover of a forthcoming Circus Devils LP and a box collecting the Happy Jack Rock Records singles series. The original art that has been used on several already-released records also is available, including the last Circus Devils LP, Sgt. Disco, and his solo Standard Gargoyle Decisions disc.

Labels: art, music, Robert Pollard